Cataclysm
by goodness graceless
Summary: Strangers for ten years, death, love, and the desperate need for closure force Eli and Clare back into each other's lives. AU.
1. Prologue

**A/N: This is an updated version of the chapter.**

**Cataclysm**

_**Disclaimer:** _Disclaimed.

_Prologue_

Angrily, she slammed the car door shut. Across the country, he was gesturing his hands animatedly.

She sped up the street, blinded by fury. He sped up his words, blinded by lights and camera flashes.

The last thing she heard was the screech of the car brakes, and someone's scream of terror. The last thing he heard was the screech of the microphone and excited applause.

Then it all went black and the collision of cars, became a collision of worlds.

He walked away from the stage. She didn't walk away from the scene.

He would do it all over the very next day. She would never do anything ever again.

Eli Goldsworthy was reading his words to captivated fans, just as he had always dreamed. Julia McMaster was dead.

* * *

><p>Dark hair framed her face with serene fluidity as she lay there, still, her skin porcelain pale, flawless and taut across unmoving features. Crimson lips pursed, strangely bare eyelids closed, frozen, smooth domes trapping the molten brown of her eyes. Her death had been untimely. Beneath that dark hair sat painless gashes. Her porcelain skin was the result of makeup caked over blackened bruises. Opened eyes would reveal a dull, lifeless brown that no one had ever seen on her before. She was beautiful, she was perfection, she was mellifluous.<p>

She was dead.

Six pews from the front sat Clare, dry eyes closed while she pictured her best friend's smile, her laugh, the way she moved with an effortless grace, impossible not to admire. She's dancing. Julia is dancing, across a dark stage. There's no spotlight-Julia never needs one. All eyes on her, always. She moves swiftly, deftly, defying gravity as she rises, falls on pointed toes. She spins quickly in flawless circles, a smile spreading on her face and she becomes one with the wind she's creating. Eyes closing. As the world fades around her, the sound of screeching tires suddenly interrupts her darkness and blinding headlights meet her now wide eyes.

Clare opened her eyes before she heard the scream.

The moment was stuck in her mind, all of her thoughts forming an endless loop of the most tragic moment in her short life-the images of her best friend's death remained ironically immortal. They had been heading home from the movies, just another Tuesday in their decade-long tradition. Julia was dancing through the parking lot, giggling when she narrowly avoided spinning into a lamppost as her cell phone rang. Clare walked slowly behind her, smiling contentedly at her best friend's contagious glee, only wavering as she frowned at the glowing caller ID in her hand. She answered, and a nervous hello turned to despair and tears.

Vividly, Clare remembered Julia began to slam everything; her cellphone on the pavement, her body against the seat, her car door shut, her fists against the wheel, her foot on the gas pedal. Even more vividly, she remembered the haunting squeal of tires and a too-familiar choked scream. The sounds hit Clare so hard, she felt as though every bone in her body was shattered.

Four rows from the back sat Eli, eyes dry, hunched over with his head limp in his hands. It didn't feel real, like somehow it hadn't set in yet. Like the body, deflated and immobile in a box 30 feet away wasn't proof enough. Like he expected her to sit up any moment, sporting the smile that he had forgotten to miss a long time ago. Her face stared back at him, burned into the back of his eyelids ever since the night he'd heard. It wasn't her face anymore-it was the face of the young, innocent Julia he had known-the one he had broken. The face in that coffin, propped up on a white satin pillow and cased in black satin hair, was the face of an older, wiser Julia-thinner, sadder, more worn, broken by forces much stronger than he.

Eli opened his eyes before he wanted to scream.

He couldn't remember exactly where he was when he'd heard; it seemed so insignificant. Thinking to that moment, everything was insignificant. He remembered wiping the sweat off of his forehead with the back of a shaking hand, chuckling to himself that his nerves still got the best of him. He tucked his book under his arm, waving to the crowd as he snuck off to a back room to find his awaiting agent.

He remembered drinking a bottle of water and laughing at someone's joke, and glancing over his shoulder when the door opened. He smiled at the young guy with a cell phone in his hand, only to be met with a look of sincere concern. Eli cleared his throat and reached for the phone. The young guy-Patrick?-shifted awkwardly. _It's uh, it's your mom, man. She said it's about... Julia?_ First, Eli's face fell. Then, the distinct feeling of being punched in the stomach knocked the wind out of him. Finally, Eli started to cry, because a world he'd forgotten was suddenly shattered.

Nearly everyone in the small church was crying throughout the service. Julia's entire family got up, makeup smeared and voices hoarse, to share every wonderful thing you could ever hope to hear about a person, and Clare, desperately trying to muster up a tear, was only able to muster self-hatred in her failure. Eli focused on creating a mental list of everything he once loved about Julia, but couldn't even influence a lump to form in his throat. As the service ended and people moved slowly throughout the church, hugging each other tightly, crying and giving empty, barren smiles over things Jamie had said and done, Clare used clear, tearless vision to wind a path through the crowded aisles.

Eli was standing outside the thick, wooden doors, a cigarette hanging lifelessly from the corner of his mouth. Ashes fell, unnoticed, to the cement steps as his mind wandered to a lone pebble sitting by his foot. A violent push to his shoulder gave him a start, and he looked up quickly to meet enraged blue eyes.

"What the _fucking_ _hell _do you think you're doing here?" Clare hissed, feeling as though a wave of tears may finally threaten her unintentional composure. Eli struggled for words. Impatient rage slowly grew tired and indifferent in his silence, and Clare shook her head, looking away across the parking lot.

"I-I was, or, well, I don't... I-"

"You shouldn't be here," she interrupted him calmly. He was taken aback.

"Clare, I know that you hate me, and I know she hates... _hated_ me, but..." He closed his mouth, as they both watched each other silently for a moment. "But, you're right. I'm going to go. Bye, Clare."

Eli turned and walked away, feeling a pang of guilt as he got in his car and left the church parking lot, not knowing that Clare was still watching him, tears finally stinging her eyes while he abandoned her there. "Bye," she muttered quietly. She let out a deep breath and looked on until his car had disappeared. As she made her own way down the steps towards the brimming parking lot, she refused to acknowledge how much it hurt that, for the second time in her life, he hadn't even thought to look back.


	2. Chapter One

**Cataclysm**

_**Disclaimer: **_Disclaimed.

_Chapter One_

The keys made a delicate clinking noise as they fell into Eli's hand, and he immediately closed his fist around them. He gave a half-smile to the landlord, and the older man nodded disinterestedly before leaving the young couple alone in the dark blue hallway. Eli turned towards the door, key poised to unlock it, when he felt a gentle hand on his arm. He paused and turned towards Imogen's expectant eyes. A faint smirk tugged at his lips.

"Am I doing this wrong?" he asked lightly. Imogen had a way of turning mundane actions into memorable events, and Eli often found himself taking her instructions to do the same. Her own lips formed a curve and a tiny giggle escaped from her smile. "No," she assured him, shaking her head, "I'm just excited." Her eyes were suddenly gleaming and Eli couldn't help but lean forward and kiss her softly.

"Me too," he whispered against her lips. Imogen laughed again and pushed on his shoulder, her giddiness impossible to contain. "Now open it!" Eli sighed lightheartedly, finally pushing the key into the slot and turning, while Imogen, forever impatient, rushed forward and turned the knob herself.

Eli had met Imogen Moreno on his way out of the Yorkville Public Library. She had stopped him on the steps, her bubbling excitement somewhat intimidating while she demanded that he sign her copy of his book. His novel had turned out to be something short of successful and he'd never been recognized like this, so he stood back uncomfortably and scrutinized the bouncing pigtails on her head, and the speed with which her lips formed high-pitched words. She must have interpreted his uneasy silence as interest, or just didn't care, because she all but dragged him twelve blocks to her "favourite coffee place, just down the street."

Somewhere between her never-ending stories of the theatre program she was enrolled in at U of T, and patronizing giggles when he all-but-stuttered out brief anecdotes from his own life, Eli had made plans to see her again the following week. Her strong-will and disregard for minor obstacles reminded him of a character he once read, and her pushiness and flare for dramatics slowly turned endearing and lovable.

Eighteen months passed, and they found themselves debating over locations and bedroom sizes and hardwood flooring. When they had finally settled on the fourth story apartment with laminate floors and one bedroom, right between the Yorkville library and that coffee shop, Eli packed all of his belongings and abandoned the grungy basement apartment that had been his for 6 years.

Eli wrapped his arms around her small frame while she admired the empty living room. He could see on her face that her mind was a whirlwind of decorating ideas, and he just smiled inwardly, resting his lips against her forehead while she tensed with anxiousness.

"Eli, this is _ours_, it belongs to _us_. It's the headquarters of our romance! We've found our own small corner of the world, a piece of the universe for us to have and to keep and be a part of-"

"Imogen, it's _home_." She stopped speaking, and fell into his hold, relaxing at his words. "And you're supposed to be the writer," she joked.

"Well, what would you like to call it?" he asked. She opened her mouth to answer, but he cut her off when her felt her entire body contract in excitement once again. "One word," he laughed. She gazed at him, her usually animated face dressed in a natural contentment he rarely saw but always welcomed.

"Home."

* * *

><p>"Damn it!"<p>

Clare cursed under her breath, groaning as her keys fell from her hands and plunged soundlessly into the snow. She crouched down the grab them, removing one worn mitten to rake through the endlessly deep slush around her. Just as her fingers met the icy captor of her keys, she felt a hand on her coat.

"Here, take mine and I'll search for yours-it's freezing out here." Clare looked up over her shoulder and smiled at her considerate boyfriend, nodding silently and smiling as she stood. "Thank you," she whispered, leaning up to kiss him. He bent his tall body to meet her lips, and quickly threw his arms around her, holding her against him a moment longer. Clare laughed, pulling away and snatching the keys from his hand.

"I'll be right here," she called to Jake from the lobby just before the glass door shut. She watched and smiled at his hunched frame, while his long arms dug through the fresh snow to no immediate avail.

Jake Martin was 38 years old, three months divorced, with two children and no visitation rights. Eleven years his junior, Clare Edwards was the younger girlfriend he was too embarrassed to introduce to his parents. His back gave out too often, he spent at least twenty minutes searching for gray hairs each morning, and he would no longer take his shirt off at the gym. His age was refreshingly irrelevant to Clare, as she was passed the point of utilizing her youth for bars and beaches and yoga.

Clare had met Jake at a diner when she couldn't afford to pay for her coffee, and he'd assumed the role of a knight in shining armor by offering to pick up her tab. Clare was reluctant, instead insisting she could wash dishes, or floors or _something_, and that he needn't worry. Smiling broadly, he rebuked her efforts and handed the impatient waitress a 20 dollar bill, "in the name of good karma." Clare had been taken aback by this stranger's uncommon kindness, and her intrigue must have shown because Jake immediately offered to pay for her dinner, too, so long as she ate it in his company.

It was only eighteen days before Clare told Jake that, no, she had not just forgotten her wallet that day, but she was on the verge of eviction because she hadn't made rent for four months. Lonely and trusting, Jake never hesitated to move Clare into his place and Clare bid farewell to the familiar apartment she had loathed for years.

Clare wrapped her arms around her torso, still thawing from her walk home, and grinned as Jake held up her keys in victory. She gave him a dramatic round of applause as he entered the lobby to join her, and he swiftly tossed the loop of cold, wet metal at the side of her head. Clare burst into laughter, joining their hands as they headed for the elevator. She absentmindedly moved to stand in front of the doors at the far left. "Really, Clare, you've lived here for almost 12 months and that elevator has been broken for all of them," Jake chuckled, tugging on her arm and pulling her into the next elevator with him.

"So, how was your day?" Clare asked menially, stepping out of the open doors and into their fourth floor hallway.

"Ordinary, met one of the new neighbours this morning. Energetic." Clare raised an eyebrow at where this was going. "Maybe you should go say hi, she lives in 413." Clare groaned.

"_Jake..._"

"Clare, I'm not trying to make friends for you, I swear. Just say hi." Clare sighed, unlocking the door to their apartment. "Fine," she grumbled, peeling her coat off of her body. "I'll go later." Jake gave her a look that was discomforting in its resemblance to those she had often received from her father growing up. He put his hands on her shoulders, and spun her around pushing her into the hallway. Clare stumbled into one of the blue walls, caught by surprised, and when she turned to look at Jake, he was staring back pointedly. "Just say hi," he instructed before shutting the door.

Clare muttered to herself as she stomped along the soft carpet. She read the door numbers as she made her way down the hall, stopping when she found 413. Breathing deeply, she raised her fist and knocked softly 3 times in quick succession, secretly hoping it would go unnoticed. She shifted her feet for a moment, inspecting the worn out wood of the door when it suddenly flung open and she was met with a man's pale, naked chest.

Momentarily speechless, Clare stared a few seconds too long until distinctly female arms snaked around the chest, clothed in what appeared to be the gray, button-up shirt it was missing. She raised her eyes to the out-of-breath, laughing couple, feeling thoroughly embarrassed and not the least bit prepared to face the person before her.

Eli had felt his heart skip beats before. It had stopped, and sped up, slowed down and even broken as situations indicated. But his heart had never felt such a surge of electric pain as it did when he opened his apartment door to Clare Edward's bright red face.

"Clare," he whispered, his voice failing him. He felt Imogen's arms around him and immediately shrugged them off. Clare's blue eyes narrowed at him, before shifting to the cheerful girl peeking out from his side. Clare's eyes opened slightly, confused almost, as she stared at Imogen, but her anger was quick to reappear when Eli said her name.

Imogen slowly stepped around her boyfriend, trying to gauge the strange interaction was she witnessing. She watched for a second, puzzled by the intense stares being passed in her presence. Clearing her throat, she suddenly extended her hand.

"Hi, I'm Imogen, this is Eli. Nice to meet you," she offered awkwardly. Clare was pulled from her infuriated trance, and furrowed her brows at the tanned fingers reaching for her. "Clare." It was quick and clearly annoyed, and Imogen suddenly recoiled at the unfriendly introduction. Ignoring Imogen's presence, Clare quickly returned to her hateful scrutiny of Eli. Acknowledging her unnecessary presence, Imogen retreated inside, her head swimming with questions.

"Clare," Eli tried again, his voice louder but still hoarse. "Clare, I know-"

"_Do not!_" The volume and ferocity of her words shocked them both. Clare was now shaking with her emotions, and Eli feared she would hit him. "Don't talk to me, don't look at me, don't try... to do this. Hell, if you really want to help? Don't live here!" She was speaking through gritted teeth, and Eli didn't know how to respond. He looked to the floor, and then back to Clare.

"Look, I... know... how you must feel, and I know what I did... But when Julia died, I-"

"Eli, say what you want about her death... it should have been you." Clare wiped a tear from her eye, her hands still shaking from the overwhelming influx of emotion, and turned to stomp her way back down the hall.

Eli nearly stumbled from the hurt of her words, but maintained his composure as he shut the door softly and turned into his own apartment.

"What was that? Who is she?" Imogen was quick to pester him. Suddenly not in the mood to indulge her speaking addiction, Eli shrugged off her questions just as he had shrugged off her touch. "Nothing, just an old friend. Forget about it."

Though he sincerely hoped that Imogen would do just that, he knew from experience that Clare Edwards was impossible to forget-he had been trying for ten years.


	3. Chapter Two

**Cataclysm**

_**Disclaimer: **_Disclaimed.

_Chapter Two_

"Hey, Clare, wait up!" Clare nearly strangled herself with the scarf she had been bundling around her neck. She stared longingly out the door for a moment, wanting nothing more than to continue on her way, getting lost somewhere between long city blocks. Keeping in mind that brushing off the other waitresses would only exacerbate the discomfort she already felt at the cramped delicatessen where she worked, she put on what she hoped was a pleasant smile and turned around.

"Sorry, Carrie, I'm just on my way out–"

"I just wanted to ask you something." Clare bit her lip, gauging the strange smile on her coworker's face. Deciding it wouldn't hurt to humour the girl with a minute of forced conversation, Clare nodded tersely.

"Well, Madison and Laura and I, we were thinking that... we've invited all the other girls already, so I thought I'd better... sorry, you see, it's Laura's birthday this weekend and we were going to get dressed up on Saturday and head downtown to–"

"So you need me to cover a shift," Clare offered, pained by Carrie's incessant stuttering but relieved by the subject she was leading to. "Sure, I don't mind. What time?" Carrie quirked an eyebrow, looking at Clare strangely.

"No, Clare, I was asking you to come." Clare felt her heart begin to beat quickly, and dismissed her phony smile. Wringing her suddenly sweaty palms, Clare shifted her focus to the grimy linoleum beneath her feet.

"I'd really rather not," she answered quietly, wishing she _had_ brushed this off after all.

"Are you sure?" Carrie asked, sounding understandably put out though not entirely surprised.

"Thanks, anyway." Clare flashed an imperceptible and insincere smile, wanting to waste no time in her second effort at exiting the building. Watching the white puff of air that was her heavy breath, she let herself disappear amidst a sparse population of winter coats and floppy hats. She shoved her hands deep into her pockets, wishing for the wool gloves she had left on the kitchen counter that afternoon.

It had been a long day, one that felt oddly empty to Clare. Between waking up late after a night of tossing and turning to an empty apartment, making messes to clean in the absence of customers to serve, and shivering in the absence of a functional heater, she'd resigned to the fact that, upon her return home, she'd want nothing more than to crawl into bed and close her eyes, begging sleep to let her forget that day had ever happened. Clare had been trying to forget a lot of days since... She shook her head, choosing to observe the varying brightness of the streetlights which lined her path.

Her steps were automatic and expeditious–she appreciated the anonymity of walking a city street, but she wasn't ignorant; it was just barely eleven o'clock, and she was barely over five-foot-two. She weaved between cars, no patience for the flashing red lights at each intersection she crossed. _So I get hit, whatever_, she thought bitterly to herself. She flinched involuntarily at the sound of a car horn and the brief clamor of reflexive breaks, but barely faltered in her movements.

Finally, her building came into view. She slowed her pace as she maneuvered through the parking lot in front of the building, but only stopped to kick the fender of a newer addition to the tenant spaces, an aged black sedan–she felt no shame in the immature habit she'd picked up several weeks before. Truthfully, she wished the weather hadn't been so consistently successful at numbing her toes, then perhaps she could realistically hope to dent the car, or, at the very least, scratch it.

She lowered her hood, and a particularly cold wind made a quick effort at freezing her exposed ears before she had pulled out her keys and rushed into the lobby. She opted for the stairs, hoping the physical effort would encourage the restoration of feeling to her fingers, only to regret the decision by the third floor because the elevator would have have her in bed already. She dragged her feet off the last step, grateful to finally reach the dark, blue hallway of the fourth floor. She walked with her head down, watching her wet shoes squish into the worn carpet.

"I didn't think I'd run into you this late..." Clare stopped walking at Eli's nervous words. She looked up-was he really so pale, or had she just painted herself as that much of a a monster? Swallowing the curse words and insults that were rising like bile in her throat, Clare rolled her eyes and pushed past him wordlessly. She thought he'd been avoiding her, and she was vaguely pleased to have her suspicions confirmed. Nonetheless, she hadn't the energy nor the desire to reject another of his attempts to stutter a bullshit apology for something she was sick of thinking about.

Entering her dark living room, Clare attempted to pull off her shoes without pausing her journey. She nearly fell on her face after smashing her knee against the coffee table, but was too exhausted to really care. She unzipped her coat and threw it at a chair, watching with disinterest as it slid off of the wooden arm and landed on the floor. By the time she reached the bedroom, she was unsure of where she'd find her scarf and sweater in the morning but only proceeded to unzip her jeans, shimmying out of them just in time to collapse into her bed.

She rolled over lethargically to kiss Jake's shoulder, though he was snoring loudly and failed to respond. She watched his lips twitch and his head roll from side to side for a few minutes until her eyelids began to settle, and she happily obliged their fatigue. As soon as the meager light filtering through the blinds was blocked out of her vision, the thoughts she found herself continuously avoiding jolted her mind awake. Following the loss of a twenty-minute battle with herself and still no sleep in sight, Clare opened her eyes and sat up, looking back to the content smile on Jake's peaceful face. Then, because she'd barely slept in a month, because even next to Jake her day felt empty, and because she hadn't left herself for a long time, Clare began to cry.

The next morning when Clare woke up, she felt immediate regret for succumbing to her midnight tears because she could now barely open her swollen eyelids. She hardly remembered falling asleep, though it was clear it hadn't happened more than a couple of hours ago. Rubbing her engorged eyes aggressively, Clare groaned and escaped the thick blanket that felt suddenly suffocating. She walked out to the living room, kicking her discarded pants out of her path, and stopped to examine her clothes splayed about the apartment.

"Rough night, sleepy-head?" Jake laughed. He was at the kitchen table, briefcase open and papers surrounding him. He peered at Clare over the top of his glasses, slowly examining her appearance. Her eyes were barely slits in her mirthless face; she was wearing nothing but a black T-shirt, "New Yorker Deli" splayed across her chest, blue underwear and one gray sock; her hair was a disorganized combination of it's natural curl and just plain unruly; and her shoulders slumped with what was more than the stupor of having just woken up. Jake wasn't quite sure what to make of her, or what to say, so he was glad when she scoffed.

"Sleepy-head, says the one in bed by nine." Pushing her tangled bangs off of her forehead, Clare shuffled towards the bathroom. Jake smiled, hoping his observations had been overly-pessimistic after all.

"Only preparing for retirement, my love," he called out to her.

"Just a few short years away, old man!" her voice came from the other side of the bathroom door. He chuckled, attempting to compile a few of his documents to give Clare some eating space. "So, I ran into the girl from 413 in the mailroom again," he announced over the sound of running water.

"Bet that made you dizzy, the girl's a walking energy drink," Clare deadpanned, headed for the fridge. Instead of responding, Jake stood up and wrapped his arms around her waist. Clare turned to him, happily accepting her good-morning kiss, and even more-happily reciprocating Jake's attempt to deepen it. His tongue swiped her bottom lip swiftly, and she let him push her against the refrigerator door, his body flush against hers. His hands were sliding teasingly up the sides of her T-shirt and she considered how convenient it was that her pants were already absent just as he pulled away to graze his teeth over her earlobe.

"She invited us to dinner tonight," he whispered, trailing open-mouthed kisses along her jaw. Clare tensed. "Why?" she demanded. Jake shrugged, pulling away to look at her. Clare crossed her arms.

"To be nice? Some people just like to socialize, Clare."

"Don't patronize me. Why are you even bringing this up? I don't want to have dinner with them." Jake stepped back, and the look in his eyes made it clear that Clare's arguments were futile from here on out.

"Well, too bad, because I already told her we'd love to."

* * *

><p>"<em>You what?"<em>

"I invited them to have dinner with us. Eli, calm down, it's not a crime to be nice to your neighbours." Imogen sipped her coffee with an air of nonchalance which only succeeded to further irritate her boyfriend.

Eli had divulged very little context regarding his history with their new neighbour, other than to label her as someone he "used to know." That they parted on less-than-amicable terms had been Imogen's own clever inference.

"Imogen, I don't think you're grasping what a bad idea it is to put me in a room with Clare Edwards. For someone who claims to love me, you clearly never want to see me again." Eli slumped down in the chair across from her, gripping one of her hands in both of his in an attempt to communicate his desperation. Imogen rolled her eyes, and laughed when he dropped his forehead to the tabletop.

"You're being ridiculous. Elijah, we're all adults. For the past month, all I've heard is how you and Clare need to be civil with one another–well, here's your chance. It's not like we're backing her into a corner; no one is holding a gun to her head and she's perfectly entitled to decline the offer. But I think we both know that she won't, and that's not our doing." Eli repositioned so his chin was on the table and he was looking up at her.

"She _is_ really stubborn," Eli muttered, his tone revealing the very slightest hint of resignation.

"See? I'm only doing this for you, darling," she implored, leaning forward and pushing the hair out of his eyes. Eli laughed.

"Please, we both know you're doing this to stir up some more real-life theatrics for you to inject yourself into." Imogen smiled. A few moments passed in which Imogen stared at a far wall, running through the lines of a monologue she was working on, and Eli remained splayed across the table, examining the swirls of wood grain.

"No, I've changed my mind, this can't end well. Absolutely not, Imogen," Eli suddenly declared, bolting upright. Imogen quirked an eyebrow.

"Elijah, you're going to have to give me a good reason to cancel this, and that means telling me what really happened between the two of you." The blood drained from Eli's face.

"It's a long story," he tried, pathetically. Imogen raised her other eyebrow, daring him to try again, before smiling assuringly.

"I've got time."

* * *

><p>Clare was still grumbling to herself 9 hours later as she straightened out the green blouse Jake had selected for her following her childish attempt to don sweats and a hoodie. "I may be a father, Clare, but trying to parent <em>you<em> gets old really fast." Clare ignored him, though she felt guilty that Jake was forced to deal with the emotions he hadn't even influenced. Jake sighed, resting his chin on her shoulder and making eye contact in the mirror before them. "Please, just try. If tonight is really as horrible as you seem to expect, I'll never bring it up again. Just _try_. For me?" Clare echoed his sigh, nodding in defeat. Jake beamed, and Clare smirked back.

Five minutes later, Clare and Jake were knocking on the door to apartment 413. Rather, Jake was knocking, and Clare was standing back warily. The door swung open, and Imogen stood on the other side, displaying what Clare decided was an obnoxious amount of teeth for a welcoming smile.

"Oh, I'm so glad you came! Where are my manners, come in, come in!" She stood back and ushered them in. Jake immediately engaged her in "hello, how are you"s, and Clare followed reluctantly. Imogen was wearing a vintage dress with a high neckline and cap sleeves, covered in tiny white flowers. She had on plain white pumps, and her hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail, tied up with a ribbon. Finally, and Clare nearly choked on her own spit when she noticed, her hands were housed in white gloves. Mentally kicking herself, Clare wondered what in the world she had gotten herself into.

They made their way into the kitchen, and Clare distracted herself by cataloguing the structural differences between this, and their own apartment. Her teeth gritted together when Eli came into view, his body leaning against the counter and a glass of water in his hand, but she allowed her eyes to sweep over him passively, just barely catching the terse nod he gave.

"Well, let's all sit down to eat, shall we?" Imogen asked excitedly, clapping her hands together. Everyone sat down at the pristinely set table, and Imogen placed a platter of ham in the center of them all with a flourish.

Dinner was consumed in awkward silence, only sporadic attempts at conversation passing transiently between Imogen and Jake. Clare was entirely focused on her plate, seeming much too enthralled with the act of cutting her meat, and Eli brought his glass to his lips every time Imogen looked to him for verbal input. As they all finally set down their cutlery and leaned back slightly in their chairs, Clare felt anxious to be done with this.

"Well, that was really wonderful, Imogen," Jake complimented. Imogen shrugged as though embarrassed, though no blush graced her cheeks, and waved her hand to dismiss him.

"Yeah, thanks for having us, it was lovely," Clare forced out quickly, rising from her chair. Imogen reached out and placed a hand on her arm, and Clare stared at the gloved fingers wrapped around her forearm.

"Oh, no, you can't go yet! I have dessert, and we've barely gotten to know each other." Clare shifted her eyes to Jake, who's own expression was pleading. Clare sat back down.

"Wonderful," Imogen smiled, "I'm so glad you can be adult about this, Clare." Eli quickly threw his gaze upon his girlfriend, brows knit together and he hissed her name quietly.

Similarly, Jake's eyes shot open, and he immediately looked to Clare, hoping she had not picked up on the Imogen's thinly veiled condescension. "Clare," he whispered, but it was no use, she wasn't listening to him.

"And miss this, Imogen? Of course not, I haven't even had the chance to compliment your June Cleaver costume–or is it Minnie Mouse?" Imogen let out a laugh, and Jake was beyond relieved when Clare made no move to further provoke the situation.

"Well, Clare, I'm an actress–I can't help but get into character. Tell me, what is it you do?" Her tone was no longer condescending, but Jake was sure that the hope of Clare adapting a pleasant attitude was unsalvageable anyway.

"Um, I'm a financial consultant for an architectural firm," Jake offered. Imogen leaned forward on her hands, her intrigue seemingly sincere.

"Oh, how fascinating. And what about you, Clare?" Clare met her eyes, and straightened up in her seat, trying to meet a challenge no one had issued.

"I'm a waitress, actually, at New Yorker Deli on Bay." Imogen nodded.

"Oh, I don't think I've ever eaten there; we should go sometime, Eli," she suggested, looking to her still-silent boyfriend for support.

"Er, yeah, maybe."

"Eli," Jake began, "What do you–"

"Have you always wanted a career in the food industry, Clare?" Imogen's tone was sickeningly sweet, and Clare really was growing dizzy trying to discern the difference between sincerity and acting.

"No, I used to be in publishing." Imogen clicked her tongue.

"Didn't pan out, then? Too bad."

"Actually," Clare shot back, "I quit. I needed a change. I was a prevalent part of Seraphim Editions." Imogen's eyes were suddenly gleaming.

"Seraphim! They published Eli's novel," she exclaimed suddenly. "Well, isn't that fun." Imogen sat back in her seat, hands folded in her lap as her eyes shifted between Clare and Eli, silently inviting them further into her conversation.

"Y-yeah, I know. I was still... there, when... when he was picked up." Eli looked at her questioningly.

"You were?" Clare felt uncomfortable with his eye contact, and began wringing her hands together.

"Elijah, clearly she wasn't about to call and tell you that you were practically business partners. Given what happened between you, I mean."

Clare's hands flew to the arms of her chair and she gripped tightly, whipping her head around to stare at Eli.

"You told her?" Anger ebbed at her words, and Eli wanted nothing more than to go back in time and tape Imogen's mouth shut, before she had the chance to instigate this whole dinner in the first place.

"Clare," Imogen began, "You hardly have to be embarrassed. You were a teenager; rejection is just a part of growing up. It was just a schoolgirl crush, and unfortunately it wasn't reciprocated. Surely you can forgive Eli, and move past all of this unnecessary hostility." Clare's face grew more contorted with each sympathetic word that escaped Imogen's thin lips. Realization dawned on Clare, and she pushed her chair back slowly.

"Jake, we're leaving."

"Clare, wait–" She turned to glare at Eli.

"For what, Eli? Just leave me alone, leave me alone to nurse my _poor, broken, rejected_ heart." Clare's words dripped with venom, and Eli had legitimate reason to believe she'd spit in his face. "_This_, is never going to work," Clare added, gesturing wildly between the four of them, her eyes landing on Imogen's amused face, "and your boyfriend is lying to you. Mine was hardly the heart that he broke, and it goes way past the rejection of a _crush_. Get to know each other, before you try to get to know us; it's pathetic."

Jake, feeling too out of place to interject, placed a light hand on Clare's back and led her out of the apartment.

Eli stood up so quickly that his chair fell over, and in an instant, his face was mere inches away from Imogen's.

"Whatever the hell that was, Imogen, it was _not_ okay. We aren't just characters in some story for your amusement, you can't manipulate people that way to keep yourself entertained." Imogen scoffed, backing away from the infuriated man before her.

"Please, Eli, you don't even like her. She doesn't matter."

"She's a human, Imogen! She has feelings, and you went out of your way to hurt them! I don't care who it is, you don't _do_ that!" Eli stormed out of the kitchen, grabbing his keys and wallet from the coffee table and headed for the door.

"Eli, where are you going?" Imogen asked, sounding bored. Eli didn't even look back before he slammed the door.


	4. Chapter Three

**Cataclysm**

_**Disclaimer: **_Disclaimed.

_Chapter Three_

Eli's dramatic exit led him no further than the nearest corner store, where he threw down nine dollars for cigarettes and a can of Coke. He smiled half-heartedly at the store clerk, shoving the carton of smokes into his pocket and draining the soda before he was even a block away. He tossed the emptied can into the nearest trash bin he saw, then took in a 180 degree view of the streets around him. He stepped down from the curb he'd been perched on and into the cracked road, reluctantly dragging his feet towards the limestone building he had come from.

Instead of going inside, Eli lit up a cigarette and let his body be supported by the wall surrounding the deserted entrance. He took a long drag, welcoming the smoky warmth which replaced the bitter cold that had been prickling at his throat. He focused on the tufts of vapor that slipped from his lips, trying to detect the difference between what was smoke and what was just his frozen breath. He stood there, thinking deeply, until his cigarette was little more than a pile of ashes at his feet and even then, he was quick to light another.

He pushed himself off of the wall, moving to sit atop the nearby steps. He wouldn't want to go up to the apartment until Imogen was asleep, but it was starting to snow and he knew she'd be waiting up to engage him in a dramatic fight anyway. He wished he hadn't yelled at her that way; the immaturity of the situation had begun with him. As much as Imogen loved to be enveloped by the thrilling melodrama of conflict, she made a point of being liked by all those around her and Eli knew that for her to treat Clare so coldly was the result of his own influence.

Eli tossed his second cigarette butt onto the cement, watching flakes of snow disappear in its warmth. Tired of smoking, but unwilling to retreat indoors just yet, Eli fell gently against the cold, concrete landing behind him. He was grateful for the early sunsets of winter, because being alone with his thoughts was much easier in only the light of the moon and the glowing, orange tip of a cigarette. Snow melted into his eyelashes, and an onslaught of memories a decade old suddenly surged through his brain.

He heard the door open behind his head, and was glad for the distraction until Clare came into view, feet at his shoulder and regarding him oddly. Eli felt abruptly ashamed of himself, for a culmination of actions he'd been considering the past few minutes, and he sat up, making way for Clare to step around him. When she didn't, he glanced over his shoulder and found that she was still just staring.

"Either you're following me, or I'm following you, because this is just ridiculous." Her statement was laced with exasperation, and Eli wanted to laugh but held back. The omission of animosity in her voice was so alien by that point, he wasn't quite sure how to react. Fearing that attempting a response would only remind her to hate him, he opted to busy his hands lighting another cigarette. As he replaced the lighter in his pocket, Clare set herself next to him, the smell of floral perfume emanating from beneath her jacket, and he was suddenly frozen.

"You used to hate the smell of those," she said quietly, gesturing to the white stick in his hand. Channeling everything he'd learned about acting from Imogen, he gathered himself long enough to mask his trepidation behind phony composure.

"Still do," he shrugged. He decided not to mention that Imogen hated it even more, and though he'd quit 8 months ago, he was childishly hoping he could make her angry. Clare nodded. They sat in silence, the snow now falling with increased density.

"Why are you talking to me?" Eli's voice cut through the long-awaited serenity before he could stop himself.

"Don't get too excited; I wanted to clear my head, and screaming at you would just be counterproductive." Eli frowned, but did not respond. "It doesn't change anything," she added thoughtfully.

"Why'd you quit Seraphim?" Again, Eli had failed to fully process his question before it was out there, hanging awkwardly between them. "I'm sorry, that's none of my business." Much to his thorough bewilderment, Clare looked at him.

"Because I'm selfish." Eli was finally able to restrain his words, and simply raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "I started over. I quit my job, I broke off my engagement, I stopped answering my phone. I wouldn't even speak to my own family; I cut myself off from the world. Anything Julia was apart of, I wanted nothing to do with." Eli was uncomfortable with the degree of vulnerability he was observing in Clare's watery blue eyes, and he shifted carefully a few inches away from her. "I wanted to live somewhere that Julia had never existed. It's pathetic. It just hurt so much, seeing her everywhere, hearing that _scream_, every time I closed my eyes–" Clare cut off suddenly, her voice lost in a sob. Eli's hands began to shake from more than exposure to the cold weather, and he talked himself out of placing one on her shoulder. "I barely had a bruise," she choked out, face in her hands. "I was in the car, Eli. I had to call her mother, and explain that Julia was dead, but I got to walk away unscathed. Do you have any idea how difficult that was?"

"It's not your fault, Clare." Eli finally reached out, gently laying his hand on Clare's knee, and searching for her tearful eyes.

She tensed. It was as though his touch had reminded her who he was, where they were, what she was telling him, because anger hastily clouded her brain and she wiped her tears away with clear contention.

"I know it's not my goddamned fault, Eli," she snapped. "I have to go." With that, Clare rose to her feet and reentered the building, and Eli had nothing to do but dwell in the familiar denigration left in her wake.

Ten minutes saw Eli losing feeling in his limbs, and he brushed the lingering snow off of his dampened jeans before following Clare's path inside.

"And where were you?" Eli looked up as he entered the apartment, seeing Imogen perched angrily on the sofa.

"I walked to the store, and then sat out front. Back off, Imogen, I was barely gone 40 minutes." Imogen narrowed her eyes, and stood up. She walked briskly past him, narrowly avoiding his shoulder. "You're sleeping on the couch. And go take a shower, you smell like cigarettes and Clare Edwards' perfume." Eli pulled the collar of his shirt towards his nose and inhaled deeply.

So he did.

Imogen lay in their room alone that night, thinking that it was the perfect moment for a heartbreaking classical piece to pair with slow, escaped tears in the pitch black seclusion of an empty bed for two. Sometimes, turning her life into a play was the only way to distract herself from addressing reality.

Eli and Imogen argued _incessantly._ Imogen wanted nothing but attention, and Eli didn't always provide it. Eli was brooding when Imogen wanted to have fun, and when Imogen wanted him to be serious, he was anything but. Imogen and Eli had a large amount of dysfunction, sometimes it felt like they were on different pages; they knew what lines to cross, and they did. Eli and Imogen shouldn't have worked, but they thrived on their fighting. Imogen loved the passion that exuded from their fights, embracing the raw energy of frenzied emotions, and it thrilled her that said passion was never in short supply. Not until Eli saw Clare Edwards' face again.

For weeks, right up until that morning, Eli had been waiting on Imogen hand and foot. Everything Imogen wanted, he gave her. He would offer his service every five minutes, and she was beginning to wonder why. Suddenly having her desperate need for constant relevance indulged by the person she least expected, she only wished he would leave her alone. She knew he wouldn't.

She knew that since the second Clare showed up, Eli had been out of character. She didn't know the story behind their hatred, because she had never heard of Clare before. She had tried to enjoy the attention. Tried to act is though it was natural, and he was finally treating her right. Instead, she wanted to strangle him. "I'm just in love with you," he would claim at her annoyance. That was it. She'd heard that before, just prior to being handed handed a story she didn't want to hear.

"I love you," had meant, "I'm sorry I cheated."

"I love you," had meant, "I set your bird free."

"I love you," had meant, "I just don't ever want to get married."

Imogen spent so much time inside her own head, that she wasn't even sure at first if the tears she felt searing her eyes were real. She thought for a moment, analyzing the emotions she felt.

So they were.

* * *

><p>Eli stared at the unfamiliar ceiling above his head. Imogen hadn't let him come home for two days<em>.<em> He wasn't sure how he felt. One minute, it was thoughtful, the next minute, pure rage. He could go from guilt, to sorrow, to anger, to relief in a matter of seconds. Mostly, he felt numb. A numb pain throughout his body, and his mind.

"_I should go talk to her." Imogen ignored him. "It's only been a couple of days, she'll come around, right? She just needs time?" She exhaled sadly._

"_It's possible... But Eli–"_

"_Possible, or probable? There's a difference."_

"_Eli, she's had ten years of time." Eli looked at her, considering her words._

"_No, you just don't understand," he insisted, dismissing her words and turning away to mumble to himself some more. Eli had apologized for his behaviour the night that he walked out on her, and in an effort to meet him halfway she was doing her best to be sensitive. She just didn't know how much more of this she could take._

"_Maybe I don't understand, because you won't tell me anything, Eli!" He gave an infuriating look of surprise hearing her yell. "First you can't even be in a room together, then you're picking fights with me about her, and now you're borderline obsessed with seeing her. What is going on, Eli? Who is this woman?" Eli hung his head, running a tired hand over his face._

"_It's not like that, Imogen." She breathed deeply, and stepped towards him, adapting a softer approach._

"_Then tell me what it's like. Eli, I love you, but you must know what you're putting me through here. When you refuse to let me in like this, I... I assume the worst. Please, tell me I'm wrong. Just tell me what happened ten years ago." She smiled at him gently, reaching for his hand. Eli's heart ached and he refused to meet her eyes._

"_I can't..." His voice was a strained whisper. Hurt, Imogen dropped his hand._

"_Then you have to leave."_

"You can't live on my couch forever." Two days ago, when Imogen had reached her breaking point, Eli had packed a bag and shown up on Adam's doorstep. They had been friends for years–almost ten–and Eli didn't exactly make a habit of reaching out to many people.

Eli didn't bother looking in his direction. He said nothing. "You guys have to talk," Adam spoke again. He was clearly trying to be sensitive, but he sounded exasperated. Eli thought of Imogen, and rolled over, pushing his face into a pillow.

"She won't listen to me," came his muffled response. Adam slumped into a chair across from his dejected friend, trying vehemently to piece together the situation based on the minimal details Eli had provided. For a published author, Adam thought, he was a pretty pathetic story-teller.

"Why not?" Eli sighed.

"Because I have no idea what to say."

"Well, I'm kicking you out. I haven't been able to bring a lady over all weekend." Eli excavated his nose from the plush cushion and glared at his friend.

"So, everything's normal, then?" Adam laughed, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.

"Look, man, you love her. You moved in together, and as fun as I'm sure it is to play house, you've made a serious commitment to this girl and that means sticking with her through the stressful shit, too. I'm pretty smart, so trust me when I tell you: she may have told you to go, but she didn't want you to leave."

* * *

><p>Sitting in the cold, he was still numb. The building was right there. He could walk in whenever he wanted. His keys were in his hands, a fact Adam had been annoyed to learn. Eli wouldn't use them without permission. He finally stood, progressing towards the building's main lobby. It was a start.<p>

"Hello?" Eli smiled into the cellphone that was pressed against his ear.

"Imogen..." There was a pause.

"What is it, Eli?"

"I'm ready to come home." Another, longer pause worried Eli, but he smiled when she mumbled a sound of resignation, and hung up the phone.

It was an awkward afternoon, sitting on opposite sides of the couch and eyes not leaving the images on the TV. That night, they lay in bed next to each other for the first time in a week. It was the closest thing to contact Imogen had allowed. She was facing the wall, and he was facing her back. He knew his return had implied a promise of an explanation, he just wasn't sure where to start.

"I never buy you red flowers." Imogen rolled over half way, craning her neck to see over her shoulder.

"What?"

"I never buy you red flowers," he repeated. She rolled onto her back, staring upwards. She was silent for a moment.

"No, they've been anything but." She glanced at him curiously out of the corner of her eye.

"It's because red flowers are my favourite."

"Oh..." She tried unsuccessfully to mask the hurt his words brought, remaining optimistic that his point would rectify that implication.

"I never knew why they were my favourite."

"W-"

"They were her favourite, too.."

"Who? What are you talking about?"

"...Julia." Imogen didn't know who Julia was. She thought for a minute, he had been speaking about Clare, and was glad to be wrong.

"Who's..." Imogen stopped, a memory suddenly popping up in her mind. "Is she the girl who died?" Eli nodded stiffly, and Imogen whimpered. "Eli, that's so sweet..."

"Clare was her best friend." Imogen's breath caught in her throat. She had been so stupid, and horrible, and insensitive. She thought Eli was trying to block her out, that he and Clare had... something she couldn't even bring herself to think about. She thought she was losing him. She still didn't quite understand, and clearly there was far more to the story, but she couldn't deny the elated relief she felt that at least she had _something_.

"Elijah, I'm so sorry," she told him. She rolled over completely, resting her face in his neck. Eli froze, unsure what to do. He didn't even know why he had told her about the red flowers.

"I love you," she mumbled. Eli faltered before wrapping his arms around her tightly, and letting his tears fall into her hair.

"I love you, too."


	5. Chapter Four

**Endless thank-you's to everyone who reviewed.**

* * *

><p><strong>Cataclysm<strong>

_**Disclaimer: **_Disclaimed.

_Chapter Four_

Eli dragged a hand over his face. He had been sleeping peacefully, enjoying a blissfully lackluster dream about chocolate bars and elephants, when the crinkling of paper beneath his face jolted him awake.

Imogen had set her alarm for early in the morning, hurrying to rehearsal for a local production of _Brighton Beach Memoirs_ that Eli sincerely hoped would actually see its opening night. True to form, she had taken it upon herself to fill the empty half of the mattress with a letter professing "a tragic regret in abandoning his angelic face." Eli rolled his eyes, though he folded the letter and tucked it into the cluttered drawer in his bedside table.

He dragged himself through the living room, pulling the same wrinkled T-shirt he had worn the day before back over his head just as he reached the coffee-maker. He cursed the unnecessarily complicated machine that Imogen had insisted on purchasing-Eli was more than content with letting trained professionals fuel his caffeinated lifestyle, but Imogen had provided him with irritatingly convincing nonsense about the fulfillment he would discover in making his own coffee. Inspecting the robot on his counter, Eli selected a sequence of the shiny, silver buttons that seemed as though it must equal coffee. He smiled, suddenly inflated by victory when dark liquid began to drip slowly into the empty glass pot below.

Four minutes later, Eli was grumbling under his breath as he dumped out the worst cup of coffee he had ever tasted. _To hell with fulfillment,_ he thought as he pulled on a pair of jeans, grabbing his keys and locking the door behind him as he started towards the nearest coffee-shop he could find.

He had barely made it 12 feet in the direction of the elevator before he remembered to grab a jacket, but by the time he had his key back in the lock, Clare's boyfriend was headed in his direction with what Eli identified as a concerning look of focus. Paying heed to the heavy feeling in his stomach, Eli kept his eyes down, violently jiggling the newly-stubborn key.

"Hey, Eli." _Damn it_. Eli looked up, making a conscious effort not to smile. "Jake," he greeted shortly, nodding his head.

"Are you busy?" Eli nearly choked, quickly eyeing Jake's unreadable expression.

"I was just going to grab some coffee, actually," he answered, hoping his tone conveyed its intended dismissal. Jake nodded, but didn't make any action to move. Eli found the moment to be far too awkward, but before he realized that it was certainly far more bearable than the discomfort that would come from spending more time together, he had muttered out, "Wanna come?" For the first time since he had shown up, the corner of Jake's mouth turned upwards and he smirked.

"Yeah, yeah, that's perfect." Eli thwarted a reflexive sigh and shoulder-slump, instead motioning towards his apartment.

"Just let me grab my jacket." He nearly swore out loud when his door unlocked with unprecedented ease.

* * *

><p>Eli's eyes shifted awkwardly, drifting from one split in the sidewalk to another as he scoured his mind desperately for a point of conversation. "Don't you have to work, or something?" he wondered aloud.<p>

"A meeting got cancelled so I don't have to go in for a few hours." Eli nodded, realizing the futility of his hints. Jake, who had been watching where he was walking quite carefully, glanced sideways, but looked away without a word. Picking up on his hesitation, Eli quirked an eyebrow. "To be honest," Jake sighed, "I was sort of... waiting for you."

"Um... oh." Eli wasn't sure what to say.

"Not to make you uncomfortable, or anything, I just really needed to get this over with." Eli sidestepped a fire hydrant, wishing it were possible to just hide behind it until Jake was gone.

"Get what over with, exactly?" Jake laughed lightly, and Eli felt suddenly defensive.

"I don't think either of us can deny the fact that this entire... situation, has been significantly awkward for us all." Eli gave a grunt in agreement. "I mean, don't tell Clare I'm saying this..." This time Eli chuckled, and Jake smiled at this first sign of a lesser hostility. "Right, talking to Clare - non-issue." When Eli failed to elaborate on the friendly moment, Jake continued. "I just feel like it's all sort of melodramatic, don't you think? Oh, hey, is this place alright?" It took Eli a second to realize Jake had stopped walking, and was gesturing towards a small store. As soon as Eli recognized the word "coffee" on the window, he was nodding vigorously and reaching for the door.

"You see where I'm coming from, right?" Eli shrugged, asking the young girl at the counter for the largest black coffee they offered.

"I guess, I just don't see what this has to do with stalking me on a Thursday morning..." Jake frowned, paying the cashier for his own drink.

"You're right." Eli perked up, hoping this meant Jake would finally leave him be. "I can't show up outside your apartment and hi-jack your morning, demanding a discussion. Maybe we could talk a little, not be such strangers?" _Or not._

"Well, what could possibly be awkward at this point?" Eli's bone's were feeling heavier with dread each second they were together, but he pulled out a chair at one of the small tables and took a seat.

"So, you don't have to work this morning either, I see," Jake began. Eli shook his head, sipping his coffee and basking in the taste momentarily before answering.

"I teach writing workshops at a few of the universities, it's a pretty flexible gig."

"Like a professor?" Eli tapped his fingers on the table self-consciously.

"Not nearly; just kids trying to impress their teachers, or their middle-aged parents who fail to resign their aspirations of being published. People are pretty busy come November, so I probably won't have more than one or two courses filled until mid-January." Jake looked unimpressed.

"You're published though, right? Not into that anymore, or...?" Eli's eyes narrowed slightly.

"Just taking a break," he muttered.

"Right, well, you know about my boring job-"

"Look, Jake, I really don't think a strained attempt at forging friendship is conducive to any interaction you were counting on, so perhaps you could just tell me why I'm not drinking my coffee alone, then we can both be on our way?" Jake raised his hands defensively.

"Eli, I know that you have a tense history with Clare - I have no idea what happened between you two. Frankly, I don't care. Clare came with a lot of baggage, and given the amount I was brining into the equation myself, we only work because she refrains from dwelling on it. Or, she did until you moved in." He gave Eli a pointed look. "Do you see where I'm going with this." Eli glared.

"Barely." When Jake laughed, it was a far less welcoming sound than it had been earlier.

"I'm not unreasonable, Eli; I won't ask you to move out, I won't ask you to stay out of our path at all costs, I won't ask you to go out of your way at all."

"Good," he answered stubbornly.

"Except to ask that you just... apologize to Clare. I'm not a dramatic guy, Eli. I'm sure you're used to it, you're living with a literal character - "

"She's an actress," Eli growled.

"Well Clare is a waitress who erased her past and can't even fathom making friends. Our life is a satisfyingly mundane one, and this period of nonsense we've been living through because of _new neighbours_ is ridiculous. Clare hates you, that much is obvious."

"And you want me to apologize to _her_ for that?" Eli was growing clearly impatient, and increasingly aggravated.

"Hey, I'm not trying to offend you. In no way do I mean to imply you actually did something wrong - that's for you and Clare to argue about. All I know is Clare blames you for something, and if you apologized... well, it would make my life a hell of a lot easier." Eli slammed a fist on the table.

"What makes you think I give a fuck how easy your life is?" he whispered harshly, minding the customers at other tables. Jake smiled patronizingly.

"Just apologize to Clare, let her get over your lingering teenage crisis, and everything - all the stress, all the avoiding, all the fighting - it can just... go away." Eli stared at him angrily, his jaw clenched. Jake threw his head back, draining what was left of his coffee, and stood up. "Just think about it."

Eli remained unmoving for a few minutes, his long-awaited drink growing cold and forgotten in his hand. _To hell with coffee._


	6. Chapter Five

**Again, boundless appreciation for everyone who has reviewed.**

* * *

><p><strong>Cataclysm<strong>

_**Disclaimer:**_ Disclaimed.

_Chapter Five_

"What do you mean cancelled?" Eli had come home that morning to find Imogen's face buried in a pillow on the couch, her shoes still on, and sporadic muffled groans escaping her deflated body. She lifted her face, and Eli was surprised to identify a lack of tears.

"Dave - the director - quit, and since he was _sleeping_ with half of the female cast, so did they." Eli shimmied into a spot on the couch, lifting her feet and setting them on his lap once he got settled.

"Imo, don't worry about it," he said softly, rubbing her back. "You were too good for this one." Imogen glanced at him over her shoulder, pausing before she flipped onto her back.

"Just like the three before it..." she trailed off, and Eli instinctively readied himself for an outburst. When Imogen sat up slightly and reached her hand out towards him gently, he smiled softly and closed his eyes, feeling her featherlight fingers in his hair. He kept his eyes closed, focused on the tingling trail she traced down his jaw and around the back of his neck, barely noting when she shifted towards him gracefully.

Once he felt breath on his nose, he looked up at a kneeling Imogen, her eyes regarding him from above with a peaceful tenderness. Her lips met his softly, and he let their mouths move together with ease. His hands found her waist, slipping just under the hem of her shirt to feel her warm skin, and her grip on his neck tightened. He spread his fingers across her back, slowly pulling her stomach into his. Imogen made a tiny satisfied noise that Eli was used to, but he smiled into their kiss and was met with the demands of her tongue dragging across his bottom lip.

Their kisses quickly turned from languid to lively, and Eli was soon on his back, Imogen straddling his hips as she kissed a fiery path from his mouth to his earlobe. He groaned as her teeth grazed the sensitive skin, and shuddered at the feeling of her hot breath. "Imogen," he growled, his hands pulling desperately at her shirt. He felt her grin just before she released a breathy giggle.

"You used the coffee maker," she whispered huskily, her kisses relocating to the underside of his jaw. Eli's hands stilled.

"Huh?" She leaned back, and Eli bit back a reaction to the feel of her settling firmly against him. She had a glint in her eye as she repeated slowly, "You used the coffee maker," punctuating her words with subtle rotations of her hips. Eli gripped her hipbones, interrupting her movements.

"So?" Imogen was suddenly uncharacteristically coy, and Eli felt vaguely unsettled.

"I know we only have it because of me, so the fact that you used it while I wasn't around... It's just nice." Eli stared at her blankly, and she frowned.

"What, Mr. Writer has no sense of sentimentality?" He looked away, shifting uncomfortably, and Imogen contorted herself to intervene his line of vision. "What's wrong?"

"I didn't use the coffee-maker," he said slowly. She grew visibly confused.

"What? Was someone else here?" Eli shook his head.

"Well, no - I mean, I used it, tried to use it, but... it was terrible. So I went out and bought a coffee instead. With Jake." Imogen, who had begun to smile sympathetically, raised an eyebrow.

"With Jake?"

"Yeah. He... wanted to talk." Imogen extracted herself from Eli's lap, allowing him to turn away from her.

"What did you talk about?" She waited patiently for an answer, growing worried each second that he did not respond. Finally, he took a breath and answered.

"Clare."

She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Well, of course you did," she said lightly, not a whisper but much too quiet. Eli reached for her hand, but she ran it through her hair so naturally that Eli was unsure wether it had been to refute his gesture or not.

"What do you mean of course?" She forced a laugh.

"It just seems... inevitable. It's the biggest thing you have in common, isn't it? Why not talk about her?" Eli's face fell. This was not right. To Imogen, everything was something. Either fate, or a sign, or a hidden sentiment. '_You used the coffee-maker.'_ Everything was _something._

"It's not like that, Imogen," Eli found himself saying. She looked up at him, her eyes flat and unaffected, very much out of character.

"It's not like what?" He faltered; he didn't even know himself what it was and wasn't, and this side of his girlfriend - the calm, collected, laid-back side that he had never seen before - made him even less sure of it all.

"I love you." Imogen's face fell, and she stood up, both hands on her hips as her lips began to mutter words Eli couldn't hear. Slowly, she turned back to face him, an oddly unaffected smile presenting itself again.

"That's not supposed to be a defense," she whispered, the cracking of her voice betraying genuine emotions. "But, I love you too." Very subtly, she raised a hand to swipe beneath her glasses before walking to their bedroom, shutting the door inaudibly.

* * *

><p>Eli rapped his knuckles on the door succinctly, his left hand clenched into a tight fist at his side. <em>It can go away.<em> It had to. _All the stress, all the avoiding, all the fighting._ He breathed heavily and uncomfortably, hearing light footsteps shuffle on the other side of the door. They paused, and Eli threw on a nervously friendly face in case he was being looked at.

"_Go away._" He sighed.

"I'm not here to fight with you, Clare, promise."

"I don't care, go away." Eli stomped one foot impatiently, breathing through his teeth.

"If you don't open this door, I'm just going to stand on the other side of it." He heard Clare snort.

"Oh, scary," she mocked, and Eli smirked, smug with realization that she was taking for granted how well he had once known her.

"I'm going to stand on the other side of it and sing death metal songs at the top of my lungs." He waited a moment, and made no effort to conceal the tactless burst of laughter that emerged from the pit of stomach when he heard the lock flip open and the handle began to turn.

"That's not even real singing," came Clare's annoyed reply, and Eli only chuckled again as he walked past her and into her apartment. "I- Hey! What are you- did I say you could come in?" she demanded.

"Well," Eli began patronizingly, turning to face her, "You tend to yell, and we have neighbours." Clare's face turned stony.

"You know, you knocked on my door, saying you weren't here to fight, so it's pretty obnoxious to waltz into my house and provoke me, don't you think?" Eli hesitated; Clare had come much closer to him, so that she now had her finger in his face.

"I'm just..." All of the frustrated confidence that he had been drawing from to knock on her door and extort his way into her living room faded in the moments that he couldn't help but look at her eyes. The bright blue he used to adore was graying, and the only life within them was manifested in the flashes of anger she felt towards him. He remembered the way it had felt to see Julia's face for the last time, so unlike he remembered, and he was suddenly praying to a god he didn't believe in that he had not been the one to hollow Clare Edwards into the shell before him. In the moments he realized just how raw the wounds he'd left her still remained, he crumbled. "I'm so sorry."

Clare brought her hand down, crossing her arms over her chest in a pose that Eli found heartbreakingly confused. "Don't say that unless you mean it," she whispered, all of the hateful conviction vanished from her voice. Before Eli could respond, she had turned her back to him, walking to the couch absentmindedly.

"I do mean it. Clare-" he heard her protest weakly as he walked towards where she was sitting, but ignored it. "Clare, I'm sorry, I wouldn't lie to you about that, I-"

"No, Eli," she reaffirmed, more loudly. Eli stopped, watching her drop her face into her hands. "You aren't sorry, you're just frustrated. A part of your past that you tried for so many years to forget keeps running you over like a freight train, bringing with it all of the full-force feelings you felt the first time, and there's nothing you can do about it. You're trying so, so hard to... ignore it, or avoid it, or pretend it's not happening, but it is, _constantly_. And it's stopped being this dark corner of your mind that, once upon a time, you managed to conceal beneath all your other regrets, and secrets, and mistakes, because now it's seeping into the rest of your brain - the rest of your life. You and Imogen... it's coming between you, and you hate that your pain is hurting someone you love, someone who, really, could not be more removed from the situation if they tried. You're not sorry for what you did, but you are sorry for what it's doing to you now and you think apologizing to me will bring us some kind of closure and then it all ends." Eli's knees felt shaky, and it was difficult to breathe - the tears brimming in her eyes when she finally looked up at him made his heart sink. He opened his mouth to speak, but not even a stutter came out. "It's all the same for me, Eli."

It felt like hours that they stared at each other, tears crawling down Clare's face and Eli's entire body numb.

"I'm so angry all of the time." Her words came out as a chocked sob, and Eli felt compelled to lower himself onto the seat next to her. He was worried when she regarded his new position warily, but she didn't protest.

"I've been bitter for ten years, because of what happened... because of you, and why wouldn't I be?" Eli swallowed a lump in his throat. "I've been running away for two years because Julia died, and I'm not proud but I can... I can make sense of that. But for the past few months, I've just been so mad... Julia and I were friends for so long, before and after you were around, and there's so much of her that has nothing to do with you at all... But you," she looked at him, the eye contact making her words seem even more sincere, "Everything about you should be something about Julia. So it makes me angry, so _incredibly_ pissed off - at you, and myself, and everyone else in the world - that for the past few months... it's_ you_ that I can't stop thinking about, and she barely crosses my mind."

Clare's body racked with violent sobs, and she covered her face with her hands. Eli stretched a hand out to place on her shoulder, but she recoiled instantly, moving to the other end of the couch where he couldn't reach her. "You can't do that, you can't try being a good guy. I need to hate you, or else I'm going to hate myself. Eli, please." Her eyes were wide and pleading, and Eli could hardly fathom how terrified she was. He had come over here because the feud between them was slowly destroying his life, and now she had him wanting to be okay with that for her own sake.

"Clare, I can't do that. I can't be an active part in this at all, I need this to be over." He frowned at her, wishing that it weren't so complicated.

"Please," she began to beg, gripping her hands in her hair and clenching her eyes shut. Eli breathed shakily.

"No." His voice was firm, and Clare opened her eyes.

"But..."

"I can't try to be the guy that you loathe, because whoever he is... he's not someone I've_ ever_ tried to be, ever _wanted_ to be. This isn't just about you and me, Clare, it's hurting Imogen, and Jake... Look, you have to believe that I want nothing less than to hurt you, but-"

"What a shame, it seems to be the only thing you're good at." Eli closed his open mouth, frowning again at the annoyance that had sneaked into Clare's tone within an instant.

"What?"

"Failed writer, failed boyfriend... promised not to fight with me, but broke that one, too - apparently fucking up my life is the only hobby you have any success with."

"Don't do this again." Clare glared at him through her tears.

"Like this is all my fault. This started with _you_, Eli." Clare stood up, throwing her arms to her sides and narrowing her eyes at him. "And then you kept it going! This could have been over a long time ago, seconds after it damn well began, if not for you." Eli narrowed his eyes back at her, gripping desperately to keep this situation vaguely calm.

"That's... that's entirely subjective, Clare. Just because I didn't cave to _your_ opinion, doesn't mean it's my fault. We could have done things my way and we'd be in-"

"You wrote a fucking _book_ about it, Eli!"

"I what?" Clare seethed, and Eli raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Your book, Eli, you're trying to tell me that was an accident?" Eli almost laughed.

"You're kidding, right? It was barely an allusion! It made up, what, 4 paragraphs of the entire story? No body would have even made the connection!" Clare crossed her arms over her chest.

"Julia would have."

"You... you mean you never even told her?" Eli was beyond surprised, and if she confirmed his question, he wasn't even sure what this meant for them, or the situation. It changed everything.

"No, I never told her! You _left_, Eli, what reason was there for me to dwell on it? Things got complicated, so you figured you'd rather leave me to deal with it alone so you could follow some stupid band around the country. You weren't around, so why was I supposed to let you ruin my friendship with the most important person in my life?"

Eli shot to his feet, his chest inches from Clare as he glared down at her. "You know why I left, Clare." His tone was suddenly harsh. Clare, unaccustomed to any kind of defense from him, faltered a moment.

"What I _know_, Eli," she continued strongly, "Is what you tell yourself to justify it. Or used to, since it seems these days you'd rather blame me."

"Right," Eli countered, throwing his hands in the air and laughing bitterly, "I forgot; perfect Saint Clare Edwards, holier-than-thou princess if ever there was one, can do no wrong. You know what the saddest thing about Jamie's death is, Clare?" His mockingly light tone was suddenly gone, and his darkened eyes were intimidatingly close to her face, his expression cold and hateful.

"Don't," she spit out, eyes shut tightly.

"It's that she had to die before finding out that her so-called '_best_ friend' was probably the _worst_ friend anyone could _ever_ have."

Clare could have made a multitude of decisions at that moment; she could have laughed to piss him off, argued to prove him wrong, screamed to shut him up. Instead, she balled up her tiny fist and threw it into his face because the only thing she wanted to do was hurt him in a way he couldn't deflect.

"You're a fucking coward," she whispered, nursing her throbbing knuckles in the other hand, seemingly unfazed by the fact that, for the first time in her life, she had_ hit_ another human being. Eli, who had stumbled a few steps backwards from the shock of it all, rubbed a hand over his jaw.

"Yeah, well, you're a pretentious bitch." He swiftly turned and took the few steps to the door. "And you punch like a girl." Eli slammed the door shut behind him, while Clare fell to her knees and continued to sob.


	7. Chapter Six

**Cataclysm**

_**Disclaimer: **_Disclaimed.

_Chapter Six_

She had screwed up. How could someone so smart do something so stupid?

_Vulnerability. Fuck it. Fuck sympathy, too. Fuck forgiveness, weakness, emotions._

Fuck civility; if holding back hatred meant replacing it with tears, then 'civil' could go screw itself. Clare certainly had.

_"It's not your fault."_

What, did he really think she needed reassurance from him, of all people? If anyone could gauge guilty behaviour, she certainly didn't trust it to be him. So why had she let him in? Why was Jake waiting silently for her to shed light on the situation, while every time Eli interrupted her day she was pouring her heart out to him? She let him turn her into a version of herself she couldn't stand, whether that entail crying in his presence, or punching him in the mouth. She felt psychotic, schizophrenic, unstable. He stripped her of self-control.

She threw her head back, the burn of tequila searing the walls of her throat.

Had she really cried in front of him again?

Had she really been dwelling on it for 26 days?

* * *

><p>Imogen and Eli had come home, exhausted after sitting through a painstakingly drawn-out play and the long drive that ensued afterwards. Eli had insisted that, given the distance between Toronto and Stratford, they should opt for a matinee showing, but Imogen hadn't deemed that thoroughly proper for 'date night.' Dragging their bodies down the hall from the elevator, they were just outside their door when they heard someone softly singing the wrong words to "Paisley Jacket." Interest piqued, Eli took the few extra steps around the corner, disbelief at what he found in a heap on the floor.<p>

Minutes later, Eli heaved Clare up from the carpet, tossing her body over his shoulder after she nearly stumbled into the door of apartment 422. He had tried to let her walk herself, but for the sake of safety and discretion in the eyes of their neighbours, he had to veto her drunken independence. Imogen was tapping her foot outside of their own door, waiting impatiently.

"Who does this?" she hissed, glaring as Eli and his incoherently-mumbling cargo passed her.

"I know, I know," he muttered. "Clare, where is Jake?" he asked clearly. Clare perked up from where she had been hanging limply on Eli's back.

"On a business trip in San-Fran-cis_co_," she exclaimed, exaggerating the "o" and giggling.

"And where are your house keys?" Eli asked, setting her gently on his couch, perching himself on the coffee table across from her.

"Inside my _house_."

"Right," Eli sighed. "So what were you doing in the hallway?" Clare stared at him blankly for a moment, cocking her head to one side.

"I wanted ice cream, but then I realized I forgot my shoes! I have such bad luck," she whined. Eli smirked.

"Ice cream and tequila? Luck may have been on your side after all, Edwards." Clare began to laugh lightly, and Eli smiled at her, unable to channel all of the hostility he'd been building the past few weeks while she was in such an obliviously drunken state.

"Eli, what are we supposed to do with her?" Eli looked over Clare's shoulder to Imogen standing in the kitchen, one arm crossed and the other supporting her chin. He furrowed his brows, and looked back to Clare, doe-eyed and distracted with a magazine she had pulled from a nearby table.

"Well, we can't exactly call the super at 12:30 in the morning. Can she... sleep on the couch, or something?" Imogen looked at the floor, offended by his hesitance in asking.

"I'm not very well going to make her sleep in the hallway, Eli, of course she can." Eli frowned.

"Imo, I know... I'm sorry. Thank you." She looked up at him, smiling slightly and nodding.

"Well, I'm going to bed," she began, but was interrupted by Clare giving an enthusiastic, "Goodnight! Thank you! Your couch is super comfy, it's _awesome_, Imo!" Imogen regarded the drunk woman in her living room with vague distaste, nodding before retreating to her bedroom. Shaking his head, Eli looked to Clare.

"Are you okay sleeping here?" Clare began to laugh, disregarding the question.

"Do you remember that time after winter formal my sophomore year?" she asked excitedly, and Eli couldn't help but groan at the memory.

"I knew going to that dance was a bad idea," he muttered, dragging a hand over his face. Clare laughed giddily.

"You were dating a dancer, dummy, there was no way out of it!" Eli grinned at the memory of trying to talk Julia out of it, only to receive a look which made his arguments instantly null-and-void. "But remember after? You both got me drunk!" Eli's eyes lit up, as he scraped his mind for the details.

"Oh yeah! You'd never even had a drink before, and we went to that party... oh, God, whose house was that? You threw up all over their porch!" Clare snorted.

"It was Dave Turner's house, he told his parents it would only be a few people, remember?" Eli couldn't help but chuckle.

"Jeez, Clare, that was one rough night... we had to force the first drink down your throat, and rip the eighth one out of your hand. Jules and I didn't even have time to join in, we were too busy chasing you around and apologizing to everyone you knocked over." They laughed together for a minute, both smiling contentedly as the memory faded.

"You're not supposed to be nice while I'm acting out my hatred for you, you know. That's not fair" she mumbled, looking at him genuinely. Eli frowned.

"Is that what you were doing? Drinking because you hate me?" Clare slumped her shoulders, nodding her head.

"Drinking to try and hate you." Eli smiled sadly, looking away. "You didn't mean it, did you?" He looked back at her, her eyes suddenly sad and desperate.

"Didn't mean what?" he asked softly, hoping for the sake of civility that he hadn't meant it at all.

"When you said I was a terrible friend..." she trailed off, looking at her fingers while wringing her hands together. Eli sighed.

"Of course I didn't, but what else was I supposed to say? You haven't been giving me a chance, Clare." They sat in silence for a moment, inspecting each others' expressions. Clare studied the straight slope of his nose, his lopsided lips, his green eyes, recognizing each and every inch of his face from years ago but also discovering a much more mature appeal beneath the surface. His jaw was more mature, more defined, and his chin was darkened with need of a razor. He was still just as distractingly handsome as he had always been, but instead of making her knees weak, it made her heart ache.

"Stop that," she whispered, the slightest of smiles tugging at the corner of her lips. Eli was taken aback.

"Stop what?"

"Making me remember why I used to think you were pretty neat," she breathed, leaning forward, elbows on her knees. Eli's breath hitched, noticing her eyes unmoving from his lips, and he instinctively leaning his forehead against hers.

"Clare, I'm still pretty neat," he answered, and though he had meant to make her laugh, the moment began to feel much more heavy. Clare closed her eyes, and Eli watched her eyelashes flutter slightly before she let out a slow breath and leaned backwards.

"I'm sleepy," she mumbled, already half-asleep. Eli stood up and grabbed the blanket that was draped over a nearby chair, and held it out for her. She took it gratefully, shrugging off her sweater and collapsing into the pillow on her right. Eli mumbled a "goodnight" and was about to walk away, when Clare, whose eyes had flown open to carefully inspect the pattern of the pillow beneath her, began to whisper.

"Red flowers," she muttered, using a finger to trace the delicate floral design, "My favourite." Eli stood still, watching as she lowered her hand and closed her eyes, drifting into unconsciousness before he smiled and whispered back.

"I know."


	8. Chapter Seven

**I have truly colossal gratitude for everyone who has reviewed. (You know what they say about rhyming...)**

**Cataclysm**

_**Disclaimer: **_Disclaimed.

_Chapter Seven_

Clare woke up the next morning on an unfamiliar couch, the bitter aftertaste of alcohol in her mouth and nauseated churning in her stomach. Through a large window, the sun was just beginning to brighten up the shallowest corners of the room and though her eyelids were undeniably heavy, she knew that going back to sleep would be both arduous and unpleasant. She stared at the white ceiling, listening to her own heartbeat in the silent apartment. She couldn't recall the last time she had slept away from her own bed - she could barely remember the last time she got more than a few hours of sleep anywhere - and although it may have been the hungover acrobatics of her stomach, she was fairly certain that waking up in Eli's living room in particular was causing the uneasy feeling she couldn't quell.

Clare hated Eli; with every ounce of blood and every fiber of bone within her body, she loathed his very existence. She was finding it difficult to remember that. Between turning into a sobbing mess every time he looked at her and the painfully familiar way he had pressed his forehead against hers after tender reminiscing, the outlines of her hatred were beginning to blur and the blame she had once placed so vehemently on his actions was beginning to dissipate, allocating bits of itself onto her own past decisions.

Jake's business trip had ended, officially, two days ago, and Clare knew she should have been more concerned when he called to tell her he was planning to take the weekend 'for himself.' Their relationship had never functioned on fighting, or bickering, or time to themselves, so the fact that Jake was requesting it so pointedly was by all means a red flag that Clare should have been trying to rescind. She was finding it difficult to remember that, too.

She rubbed her eyes, deciding it was too early to think about anything. She looked around the apartment, inspecting what was within her view from the couch. There were magazines on the table - pointless tabloids, one about current theatre productions and reviews, a few issues of TIME and Rolling Stone. Their TV was small and pushed into a corner that made it hard to observe comfortably, and Clare decided it made sense that Imogen was as disinterested in television as Eli - _God knows there's enough drama in her own head._ There were abstracted paintings hanging on the soft green walls (surely not Eli's colour-scheme), and some framed posters of classic bands Clare knew Eli adored.

Picking everything apart like this, being able to discern what was Eli and what wasn't, made Clare realize how close they had once been - how well she had known him. It made her stomach flutter to think of the night before, when they had laughed and smiled and relived one of a thousand pleasant memories. Parts of her night were fuzzy and censored, but she knew that no one had yelled and no one had cried and somehow, she found herself elated.

She heard shuffling in the bedroom and immediately closed her eyes in an attempt to feign sleep, turning her head so her face was mostly concealed. The sound stopped and no one emerged from the room, but Clare had been terrified enough that she now wanted to leave. She wasn't sure where she was supposed to go - it was probably still too early to call the super intendant, and a lack of shoes had been the reason she was in this position at all. Still, Clare threw the blanket off of her, wanting to sneak out of the apartment as quickly as possible.

When she rose to her feet, she immediately regretted her haste because her head began to spin and she could feel the discomfort in her stomach begin to creep up her throat. Trying to subdue the feeling with deep breathes a few times, Clare found herself unsuccessful and instead only sprinting for the bathroom.

She was too distracted to contemplate the commotion she caused breaking into a run across the room, or how loudly she had slammed the door behind her and by the time the thought began to occur to her, she was doubled over in front of the toilet, the physical manifestation of her ill-advised drunkenness purging itself from her body.

When her stomach was surely beyond empty, and her abdomen ached with muscle spasms, she ran her hands through her hair and wiped her mouth with the back of her arm. Closing her eyes, she sat back against the wall, and tried to catch her breath, repeating to herself mentally, 'You have to leave, you have to go,' until she drifted into sleep.

_Clare._

Due to a lack of window or clock, Clare wasn't sure how much time had passed when she woke up, her face pushed into the area rug, and arms wrapped around herself against the cold tiles.

_Clare._

She blinked a few times, trying to register where her name was coming from, but mostly concerned with rubbing the carpet-imprint out of her cheek, and detangling the bird's nest that was her hair.

"_Clare_, are you okay?"

Clare looked to the door when she recognized Eli's voice, stumbling to her feet and reaching out to open it. Before she touched the handle, she caught herself in the mirror and stopped to criticize her exhausted appearance.

"Clare, do I need to come in there?" She scoffed at his concerned tone.

"I'm fine," she choked out, her voice groggy and tired. She was prodding the dark circles beneath her eyes, violently rubbing away at the smudged makeup splayed down the right side of her face. She hoped that the pillow she had slept on didn't mirror that result of her evening.

"Do you need something to eat?" Clare smiled before she could help it.

"No, uh, thanks, I'm alright," she insisted awkwardly, but was interrupted by her stomach growling. "Actually, yeah, please," she corrected.

"Okay," came his muffled voice again, "I'll be out here." She heard his footsteps retreat, and sighed, continuing to tweak her disarrayed appearance until she felt presentable enough to face the two people she least liked to see.

She opened the door slowly, peeking around it before exiting the bathroom. Her socked feet padded softly against the laminate flooring, and she felt like crawling into herself as she maneuvered around the furniture. Eli was standing in the kitchen, his back turned to her while he fiddled with something in the sink. Clare briefly considered how easily she could duck out of the apartment before he noticed. Before she could really give it some thought, a small pile of books made a loud clatter as she accidentally knocked them off of a small desk. Eli was startled, and spun around to see her, looking sheepish and rushing to pick them up.

He wanted to laugh, or help her gather the fallen novels - anything - but all he could do was stare at her. He swallowed thickly, feeling suddenly nervous.

Clare, placing the books in a much more organized stack than they had been before, was unsure of what to do under Eli's scrutiny. The desire to scream at him was gone, and she wasn't entirely sure how to proceed in its absence.

"Is Imogen still asleep?" Eli's unusually unaffected lips curved into a smirk that made Clare's face rush with warmth.

"Clare, it's past noon, Imogen's not even here." Clare's face fell - past noon? She'd been passed out on the bathroom floor for that long? "Don't worry about it, the search for a washroom was an excuse to go out for breakfast." It was obvious that he was trying to lighten the awkward tension between them, but the blush fell from Clare's face and she paled. She felt suddenly embarrassed and exposed, standing in from of him in rumpled clothing and messy hair, her shoes locked in her apartment without her. Eli seemed to notice, because he shifted uncomfortably, clearing his throat.

"I made you some food," he muttered shyly, gesturing to the plate of eggs and toast on the table. Clare noticed he must have been doing dishes, because he was gesturing with a hand housed in a yellow rubber glove. "Eli Goldsworthy, domestic god," she mumbled under her breath. He must have heard because he chuckled.

"'What time he can spare from the adornment of his person he devotes to the neglect of his duties,' as William Hepworth Thomson once said." Clare nodded.

"You still do that a lot?" Eli looked puzzled.

"Dishes?"

"No," Clare shook her head, "Display your incessant pretentiousness via obscure quotations no one has ever heard before." Eli frowned, his brows furrowing in defense until Clare began laughing quietly. "Kidding, Eli, I'm kidding." Eli smiled broadly, and Clare's stomach tightened at the brightness in his eyes.

Clare stepped forward towards the table just as Eli was stepping in her direction, and they found themselves awkwardly face to face. Clare apologized, moving to the left just as Eli moved to his right. Smirking, Eli placed his hands on Clare's shoulders, pushing her around him. Clare stared up at him for a moment, watching as his smile faded and he let himself become absorbed in their eye contact. Something in his expression changed, but before Clare could gauge his thoughts, he had ripped his hands away from her shoulders and stepped back.

"I've been waiting to brush my teeth... be right back," he told her, throwing a thumb over his shoulder. She nodded silently, more concerned with escaping his immediate company. He disappeared quickly into the bathroom, and Clare sighed heavily before sitting down to start eating.

Eli splashed water in his face, his body humming with more emotions than he felt equipped to handle. He hadn't slept the night before. How could he, with Clare Edwards in his apartment, only one wall and ten feet of space between them? He wasn't even sure how his mind was functioning to let this woman scream at him, throw punches at him, degrade him to no end, only to forget it all had happened the moment her pink lips smiled at him.

She hated him, she treated him like absolute _dirt_, and he carried her into his home, let her sleep on his couch, made her breakfast. Why? Because when he looked at her, in those rare moments of vulnerability, he saw the Clare he used to know, and there was nothing on Earth that could make him resent her. It was unhealthy to let her strip him of self-control like this, and despite knowing so in his mind, it was difficult to remember while his heart was soaring in her civilized presence.

He pushed his toothbrush in and out of his mouth, scrubbing his teeth with the same ferocity he felt burning in his stomach. Once he was finished, he stared at himself in the mirror, looking for something, anything - any small change to prove to himself that he had changed. He found nothing, instead deciding that he was more himself today than he'd felt in a long time.

He left the bathroom, finding Clare pacing around his kitchen, her plate of food half-consumed, and his cell phone in her hands. She looked up at the sound of the door.

"Do you mind if I use this?" she asked, holding up the phone. He shook his head. He made his way into the kitchen, sitting down and watching as she spoke to the superintendent, explaining her situation and begging him to come soon with a key. She sighed with relief, thanking him before hanging up, and handed the device back to Eli.

"So, he's coming soon?"

"Twenty minutes," she nodded.

"Well, feel free to wait here." Clare hesitated before nodding again, delicately pulling out a chair to join him at the table.

"Thank you..." she began gently, "For last night. Letting me stay here."

"No problem, I'll tell Imogen you said that." He smiled stiffly, and Clare frowned.

"She's not very nice to me." Clare wasn't sure why she had said that, but Eli just looked at her calmly.

"You're not very nice to her boyfriend." Shake quickly overtook Clare, and she nodded, her silent validation of his statement. "Clare, I didn't mean to interrupt your life. At Julia's funeral..." he trailed off, and Clare's breath hitched. "In all honesty, at Julia's funeral, I was really hoping that I would see you. When I did, the way you reacted to me... well, I promise I'm not trying to ruin your life on purpose. I wish I'd known you lived here, because I swear I would've stayed out of your way." Silence hung between them, a thick wall that was crushing Clare's lungs.

"Thank you," she whispered. Her head was pounding, from a combination of her feelings and her alcohol consumption. She wasn't sure what to say to Eli when she wasn't angry or drunk, and lacked the energy to decide, so instead she crossed her arms on the table and laid down her head. Eli regarded her blankly, and she stared back at him. It felt like hours that they sat there, staring at each other, just like it had before.

Eventually, Eli shifted and checked his watch, letting Clare know that she should probably go wait for the super by her apartment. She gave him an awkward goodbye, and made her way down the hallway, wishing her socks sported something more subtle than their bright pink stripes.

She waited at her door for a few minutes until the super arrived, shaking his head agitatedly at the excuse she threw together for being locked out. He let her in quickly, complaining about the better things he had to do. As she was standing inside her doorway, trying to end the conversation which revolved mostly around his complaints, he name was suddenly being called.

"Clare!" came Eli's breathless plea as he rounded the corner at full speed. He stumbled to a halt in front of the superintendent, having not expected his company. Clare glanced between the two men, until the older of them mumbled a goodbye, and took off towards the elevator.

"Clare," Eli breathed again, stepping closer to her. She looked at him expectantly.

"Yeah?"

"I just... I wasn't really ready for you to leave yet." Clare's mind was screaming at her to send him away, end the complications that were growing around her like suffocating weeds. Instead, with a sigh, she stepped aside and let him in.


	9. Chapter Eight

**My sincerest gratitude to everyone who has taken the time to review, and a special 'thank-you' to **_**munrographics**_** for the support! It means a lot.**

**Cataclysm**

_**Disclaimer: **_Disclaimed.

_Chapter Eight_

_Tumultuous._

If Eli had to choose a word to describe his relationship with Clare, 'tumultuous' would certainly not evade his thoughts. Everything between them was simpler because they had once known each other so well - known each other at their core, in ways that ten years of life could not shake - but so much less predictable because, on the surface, they were doing everything in their power not to be the teenagers they once were. Throughout those nights when he found no solace in slumber, he had decided Clare was avoiding herself to spite him, to spite everyone who had hurt the warm, compassionate girl that was her genuine self. Eli wanted nothing less than to succumb to the shadow of his former self, because that was what had gotten him - them - to this place.

He wasn't sure if he'd expected Clare to let him into her place, or if she'd speak to him at all when he came bounding around the corner calling her name frantically. He'd just been so desperate. Something inside of him was clinging to the moments in which Clare smiled at him, laughed with him, coexisted with him. They were such short seconds, though, and it felt like his sanity was crumbling every time they ended so abruptly, as they always seemed to be doing. The intangibility of it all - nothing to hold on to, nothing to reassure him but the mind and memories he couldn't trust - made his skin burn and the only thing that could extinguish the flames he felt was to see her face.

Being near her was awkward, and it made his palms sweaty and the erratic pace of his heart was borderline distracting as it pounded without rhythm in his ears. Eli felt 17 years old walking into her apartment for the second time, an age that he both cherished and dreaded the idea of ever reliving.

"What's up?" He jumped when she spoke, both his confidence and adrenaline having abandoned him somewhere between the hallway and her living room. He glanced up at her, no effort to conceal the action of wiping his hands on his black jeans. He was here, in front of her, and terrified as he might be he could _feel_ that something had changed in the last twelve hours, something that urged him not to hide behind any kind of front.

"We were best friends," he blurted. It was the first thing that had popped into his head. When her gaze didn't falter but her expression remained unaffectedly blank, he continued. "We were more than best friends..." He trailed off, unsure of his own direction. To his relief, Clare smiled, but there was something inherently bereaved about it and he felt worried again when she stopped looking at him, and attached her focus to some inanimate object in the room.

"There's not even a label for what we were," she said, her voice quiet but unwavering. Eli stepped towards her, his hands raising in her direction while they gestured wildly to convey the meaning he couldn't seem to verbalize.

"So why can't we just go back to that?" he begged. Clare looked at him wide-eyed, and he dropped his hands. "I just want to be friends with you again," he added, dejection already creeping into his voice.

Clare covered her face with her hands, hoping the pressure on her eyes could make this more clear. She breathed deeply.

"I don't even know who you are anymore, Eli," she reasoned, exhaustion in her words.

"Of course you do. Clare, I'm still me... I haven't changed!" He sounded anxious now, and he couldn't quite say where his hysteria was coming from.

"Is that really such a good thing?" she asked, peeking through her fingers. Eli faltered, so she clarified, "Is that what we want? To be the same people that we used to be, on the same path we've already followed?" Eli felt himself shrink, wishing he didn't know exactly what she meant.

"It's been so long, we wouldn't make the same mistakes." Clare paused, contemplating his words.

"Wouldn't we?" Eli didn't even hesitate before shaking his head. Clare's sad smile returned.

"I'm glad you can say that, but I don't trust it, Eli. It would just be more pain." Eli looked at her strangely for a second before his face fell.

"Clare, please," he whispered, begging as he tried to grab her hand. She wrenched it away from him, the space between them expanded in an instant. Eli was taken aback by her sudden movement, and could only watch her from where he stood, now further away. "Why are you shaking?" he asked, wary of her answer. She looked at him, the reason for her trembling splayed clearly and regretfully across her face. Eli felt destroyed. "Are you scared of me?"

"You have no idea." The next few seconds stretched out endlessly between them. Eli felt anguished and dizzy. "We can't be friends, Eli," Clare finally said. "Last night... this morning... it's not going to change anything. I still hate you." Eli frowned.

"Do you?" he asked bleakly. Clare couldn't help but notice the saddened expression and sighed.

"No," she muttered. Eli narrowed his eyes, his determined intent bubbling once more.

"You're so... inconsistent, Clare! I don't understand why you _want_ to hate me. Getting along is so clearly a possibility, why do you find the alternative so much more appealing?" Clare tilted her head, considering carefully her next words.

"That's what I'm scared of. If I let myself stop hating you, I don't trust what's going to take it's place." She looked up at him earnestly, but he closed his eyes.

"You're making this so hard for me," he mumbled, "I don't see how I'm supposed to be okay with that. Not when it would be so easy to get it all back, everything we had." Clare laughed a bitter, cynical laugh and Eli frowned again.

"Is it easy for you? Easy to see me, easy to talk to me, easy to know I'm sleeping on the couch you and your girlfriend bought? I'm sorry if I've made it easy, I certainly wasn't trying."

"What do you mean?" She crossed her arms over her chest, shifting her weight.

"I want you to hate me as much as I want to hate you. That's what seems easy to me. It's painful for me to be around you, Eli. I haven't forgotten what happened, I'm still _hurt_. It's fantastic that you were able to move on, able to draw on new maturity and accept what happened but I never even _started_ my healing process. Any closure I could hope to have hasn't begun to form. I had Julia, Eli, and you were her _boyfriend_. She loved you, and you were supposed to be together forever. So when you left..." she dug her hands into her pockets, looking at the floor with guilt. "It had to be about her, Eli. What I lost couldn't even begin to match the hurt she was feeling. What right did I have to be upset, to cry, to worry about making myself feel better when she needed the comfort so much more than I did?"

"But that's not true, Clare, you had _every_ right to be as hurt as Julia was -"

"Was I in as much pain as Julia? Probably," she cut him off, her tone unbearably casual. "Did I have the _right_? No. We both know that." Eli remained silent, conceding her point.

"It stopped hurting after awhile, of course it did, but not because I'd dealt with the pain... because I pushed it to the back of my mind and, most of the time, I was able to pretend it didn't exist. But it's still there, and it's still raw. Every time I see you... yeah, I could laugh and smile and reminisce and be friends, but I have to try _so _hard, because behind all of that I'm still trying to get over what you did ten years ago." Eli opened his mouth to respond, but Clare cut him off again correcting, "What _happened_ ten years ago."

"I didn't do it to hurt you, Clare," Eli said. "I always knew that if I could, I would go back and change everything. Then, here you are, and I have the chance to make everything right but you're asking me not to as if it hasn't been my biggest regret for ten years." Eli felt tears in his eyes, and it required all of his concentration not to let them destroy his composure.

"Eli..." Clare's voice was tender all of a sudden, and Eli was shocked to see her reaching for his face. Her small hands felt smooth against the stubble along his jaw, and her fingers were featherlight against his cheeks. Her thumb stretched out to catch a tear that he couldn't hold back. "I can't," she whispered. Eli clenched his eyes shut, droplets squeezing out from between his eyelashes, and he leaned his forehead against hers. "I'm sorry," she kept repeating, her breath on his face and Eli wanted nothing more than to pull her closer and feel her against every part of him, to make as permanent her imprint against him as was possible. "I'm sorry."

The sound of the door opening jolted them apart, but not quickly enough to avoid Jake's shocked and questioning face. Eli dragged his hands surreptitiously across his face, sniffling quietly. Wordlessly, he glanced at Clare and pushed past the man in the doorway, disappearing into the hall.

Clare felt paralyzed, the nerves she felt in Jake's presence far different from those she had experienced around Eli. Jake raised an eyebrow, turning to shut the door with force Clare deemed somewhat excessive. When he turned back around, she was surprised to see him looking angry.

He glared at her from his spot in front of the door, and she held his gaze steadily. She could see the thoughts running rampant behind his eyes, they're usual calm taking on a crazed glisten. He stared at her like that silently before startling her by turning and kicking over the suitcase he had left by the doorway. It fell with a heavy thud, but not before knocking over the small table next to it, the glass bowl on top crashing down with a shatter that made Clare flinch.

"What the hell, Clare?" he was suddenly demanding, his tone menacing and unrecognizable. She fought the urge to step away from him.

"I thought you were still in San Francisco," she answered lamely. The acidic laugh that she received in return made her skin run cold.

"You know, Clare," he began, hands on his hips. "We're supposed to be _drama-free_. No baggage. Not only is your baggage suddenly showing up all over the place, but you're inviting it into my home." Clare stiffened.

"_Your_ home? And in case you've forgotten, you were the one who wanted us to _get to know them_ in the first place!" Jake shook his head.

"Which completely backfired, and I apologized! That's a moot point, Clare. I did that to _avoid_ these ridiculous situations, because I thought that's what you'd want. This... melodramatic, phony, spiteful Clare is not the woman I thought I asked to move in with me." Clare's jaw dropped.

"You barely knew the woman you asked to move in with you in the first place! You don't even understand what just happened, Jake, you have _no_ idea why he was here so do not jump to conclusions and begin to question my character."

"Tell me why he was here, then, _love_, because I'm having a hard time following the story these days. Yesterday you couldn't stand him! You claim not to care about him but from where I stand, a lot of effort goes into thinking about him."

"Oh, I'm in trouble because I _care_ about something. Is that what this is about, Jake? _Your_ house is a drama-free zone, and my _baggage_ is interrupting the harmony of your life? No emotions allowed? I see, me having feelings about something is a deal-breaker. Good to know." Her tone was fluctuating from venomous to hysterical, her volume following suit. Jake, whose hands had been flailing while he paced a small area in front of her froze.

"Do you have feelings for _him_?" Clare's eyes flew wide open and she struggled for a response.

"That is positively asinine," she asserted. Jake laughed under his breath, all defenses abandoned as he reached for his glass-showered suitcase lying on the floor. Clare stepped towards him, forcing her body into his line of vision. "What are you doing?" she demanded. He hissed as a shard of glass cut his finger, but ignored the injury and settled the bag upright.

"It doesn't matter, it's just clear that I came home too early. So go ahead and deal with whatever you need to deal with, and I'm going to deal with something other than you." Though her anger was pulsing through her veins, his words both stung and terrified Clare.

"Jake, no," she began, but he didn't let her finish. He paused with his hand on the doorknob, looking at her pointedly.

"Should've just said 'no,' Clare." She immediately knew that he questioned her response about her feelings for Eli, and shame washed over her.

"Jake! I'm saying 'no' right now, don't leave," she pleaded. He stared at her for a few seconds, and Clare thought he was going to stay, but then he shook his head and continued out the door.

Clare felt infinitely alone among the broken glass.


	10. Chapter Nine

**Goodness gracious, thanks so much to everyone who's reviewed.**

**Cataclysm**

_**Disclaimer: **_Disclaimed.

_Chapter Nine_

The rising sun broke through the blinds easily, painting golden lines along walls and furniture. Clare sat at the kitchen table, hugging her knees to her chest as she traced the paths of light with disinterested eyes. She paused on the floor near the doorway where the sun got tangled in a mess of glass splinters, fragmenting tenfold, ricocheting out into the room and blinding Clare with its white gleam. She turned her head, letting it rest against the tops of her knees.

After three nights alone, she'd given up trying to sleep in their bed.

She knew she was sabotaging herself. She needed to clear her mind, distract herself. Her thoughts were all racing down different paths to the same fatal destination - an inevitable and debilitating train wreck of emotions. She'd been planted in this spot, or a contiguous variation of it, for days. She gripped her cell phone tightly, glancing at the screen repeatedly. Its consistent inactivity felt mocking, and a surge of tears overwhelmed her each time it flashed with a call regarding her failure to show up for work, instead of a return to the many messages she'd left Jake.

Her muscles were drained of strength and her eyes were sore with lack of sleep. Her head felt heavy, her fingers constantly wringing through unwashed hair to support the weight her neck couldn't withstand. She'd cried herself raw, the skin around her swollen eyes beginning to feel papery and delicate as though the constant torrent of tears had burned through the top layers like acid. Her hands were spotted with blood that had transferred from her knees, the latter splayed with tiny cuts from when they'd given out and she'd fallen onto hundreds of tiny pieces of glass. The relentless flux of emotions had drained her entirely, to the point where she could barely even breathe without conscious effort. Even when she did, it made her lungs sting.

Everything hurt, but she knew that she deserved each second of pain that she suffered.

She was a horrible person, and this was karmic justice.

His precedence over Julia's memory was almost impossible to face. To go through each day and know that the person who consumed the majority of her thoughts was someone who should have lacked relevance entirely was unbearable. Ridden with guilt, she couldn't even use sleep as an escape from the disturbing prison of her mind. It made her want to vomit to think that he could even cross her mind at a time when she should be so wholeheartedly concerned with her failing relationship and the boyfriend who had deserted it.

She had been so _stupid_, risking everything like that. Letting him into her apartment, her world, her life. He'd always been able to render her defenses useless and ten years apart had not bolstered her ability to bear up against him in the slightest. He'd reduced her head to a battle-ground where she was at war with her own thoughts, infinitely antagonizing herself.

The sudden chirp that her phone let out startled her, and it took a second for her to slow her heart. She tried not to be hopeful, but her desperation could not be suppressed. She blinked a few times quickly before reading the screen.

_New Message from __**Jake**__. _

Clare felt a rush of oxygen in her lungs, as though her body had been waiting for this very moment to let her breathe. Tears flooded in her eyes, excited and overwhelmed. With shaking fingers, she opened the message.

_At Katie's, trying to work things out._

Once more, Clare couldn't catch her breath.

* * *

><p>When Eli answered the quiet but insistent knocking at his door, he did so with a pen in his hand and a carton of cigarettes burning a hole in his pocket. He'd felt frantic for days, pulling out notebooks so he wouldn't pull out his hair, attempting to channel his frenzied thoughts. He felt erratic and irritable. He'd snapped at Imogen for hovering over him, and again for being so distant. He spent his time pacing between his bed and his desk, chain-smoking cigarettes in front of the building and closing his eyes to the sound of aggravated heavy metal on full volume. When he'd opened the door, he'd done so with the intention of barking out a dismissal at his visitor, but it took him a split second to switch tracks.<p>

She was wearing the same clothes Eli had found her in days ago, the knees of her jeans now shredding and flecked with dark red. The dark blue beneath her eyes made them seem even paler and less lively than they were on their own, and the only other colour on her face came from splotches of red around her eyelashes and on her nose. The rest of her skin was ashen and papery looking, as though she'd aged years since he last saw her.

He felt his heart drop and his fingers went numb, but when he thought of Imogen meditating in the living room, and his angrily crumpled papers all over the floor, he shut the door behind him without a word and stepped into the hallway. She stepped back to allow him the room.

His eyes searched her face for some kind of explanation - there was a reason she was here, and their recent history with face to face interaction left him less-than-confident that he could make a correct assumption. She looked up at him, her face failing to reveal her intentions, though any expression she might make would be masked behind the tendrils of messy curls blocking most of her face. Instinctively, Eli reached out and used a single fingertip to push them aside. Sighing, he pulled his hand back and reached into his pocket.

"Come on," he muttered, holding up the package of cigarettes. The muscles in Clare's face contracted slightly to show her contemplating his offer, but it was hard to miss the small nod that came afterwards.

When they left the dark hallway of their building and stepped into the lot outside, they both immediately shielded their eyes from cruel rays of sunlight, finding their eyes from every angle as it reflected off the snow. Clare wrapped her arms around her waist, quick to lower herself onto the steps in an effort to wrap herself up in her own body. She brought her knees close to her chest and leaned forward, rubbing her hands up and down her shins. Eli sat down next to her, less affected by the drop in temperature, and held out his box of cigarettes again. Clare hesitated, but took one delicately. Eli followed suit in a much less graceful but far more experienced manner, letting the smoke hang from his lips loosely as he dug into his pocket for a lighter. He lit his own expertly, and then held out the flame to Clare.

She rolled the white stick between her fingers for a few seconds before putting it into her mouth and letting Eli light it for her. Slowly, she inhaled the thick smoke, glad that she was able to hold back a cough.

"I never thought I'd see the day," Eli muttered, smiling as he blew out a stream of creamy gray. Clare laughed, inspecting the glowing amber tip of her cigarette as she held it in front of her.

"I always hear people say, 'I need a cigarette, I need a smoke.' This seemed like one of those times."

"Ominous." Clare snorted at Eli's unaffected response. They sat on the steps for a minute, smoking their cigarettes in slow silence.

"I'm sorry for scratching your car," Clare suddenly said. Eli raised an eyebrow at her.

"There aren't any scratches on my car..." Clare's face contorted in confusion.

"At all? I kick the stupid thing as hard as I can every time I see it. Admittedly, it's hard to see a black car in the dark but I'm almost positive that-" She was cut off by his laughter.

"Clare, _my_ car is _silver_." Her mouth formed a small 'o' at this information, her face heating up in embarrassment at her glaring mistake. She watched Eli's eyes crinkle with laughter and his mouth was wide with the sound of his amusement at her horror, and soon she was gripping her own sides tightly, the pain almost unbearable from laughing so vigorously. Minutes later, as the sound of their joy subsided and a solemn atmosphere descended on them once more, the silence seemed much more tangible than it had to begin with.

"Jake is at his ex-wife's house," Clare let out casually, taking another drag of her cigarette. She stared up at the sun as she let it out.

"I take it that's not normal," Eli answered, leading her to elaborate. Clare shook her head.

"They were separated for two years, divorced for months now. He hasn't seen her since the split was official. Not that I know of, anyway." Eli nodded, furrowing his eyebrows as he shook the ashes off the end of his smoke.

"So, why is he there now?"

"According to him," Clare began bitterly, "They're _'trying to work things out.'_" Clare fixed her gaze on the parking lot in front of her.

"Why?" Eli finally asked after a full pause. Clare turned her head to the side, finally allowing herself to look at him properly.

"Because I'm an idiot," she whispered, her voice lost and tangled in smoke. Her tone confused Eli, the defeat in her words tired and unopposed. "Because after way too many years, I'm still in love with you." A sudden gust of wind blew by, and Eli's skin ran cold and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. He felt a chill down his spine and nearly shivered.

"No, you're not, you-"

"Eli," Clare insisted, her voice determined and intimidating, tones of annoyance seeping through. "Don't. It's hard enough to live inside my own head, constantly fighting my own thoughts, without you making me question them too." Eli forced himself to meet her eyes, the flash of vulnerability in them making him feel weak.

"Clare," he whispered. He couldn't keep the sadness from his voice. He tilted his head, taking in her tangled hair and sleepless eyes, and whatever words had been forming on his tongue dissipated into the smoke he inhaled next. As he steadily blew out into the cold air, Clare's eyes remained unwavering on his face, unblinking and patient.

"I don't know what to tell you," he finally told her, looking out to the parking lot. His words were honest, but difficult for him to say, even more difficult for her to hear. Sighing, she forced herself to swallow the lump in her throat, shaking her head imperceptibly. She blinked slowly, turning her head away.

"I didn't think you would," she muttered, her vision growing blurry behind more tears. A familiar ache formed in her head, and she longed to return to her apartment, alone, to wallow in the mess that was her life. "Well," she said after a long and daunting silence, "Now this is _definitely_ one of those times. Do you mind?" she asked, motioning to the pack of cigarettes. Eli furrowed his eyebrows, thoughts racing but unsure of what to make of this situation, unsure of what he was supposed to do next. Absentmindedly he held out the box, barely registering when she had taken one and only remembering to hand her his lighter when she prodded his shoulder gently.

"Imogen is upstairs," he suddenly blurted. Clare's eyes widened briefly, before she looked away dejectedly.

"I know, I... I'm sorry." Eli felt guilty for shaming her, but the situation was proving too unreal to fathom, let alone respond to. "This really is disgusting," she mumbled, tossing away the half-smoked cigarette. She wiped her hands on her jeans, standing up slowly. Eli watched wordlessly as she disappeared into the building.

He stayed down there long after she left, holding his head in his hands and thinking. As hard as abandoning her had been a decade ago, rejecting her now felt so much worse.


	11. Chapter Ten

**Thank-you!**

* * *

><p><strong>Cataclysm<strong>

_**Disclaimer: **_Disclaimed.

_Chapter Ten_

Clare finally went back to work the next morning. She was met by countless inquiries regarding her health, to which she responded with a sad smile and a pathetic cough or sniffle. She felt pathetic. She waited her tables like a zombie, pouring coffee and wiping up spills as though it were second nature. And second-nature it may have well been, because she felt utterly _purposeless_. There was nothing and no one left for her - she'd pushed it all away.

The sun was out and shining harder than it had been for months, and Clare was forced to untie the scarf from around her neck while she walked home that afternoon. She was uncomfortable and sweaty beneath her thick jacket and sweater, feeling oddly juxtaposed while the snow crunched beneath her feet.

"_You're so... inconsistent, Clare!"_

Hadn't it been his intention for her to make a decision? Hadn't he been begging her to demolish this wall of animosity, to regain the dynamic that had existed between them ten years ago? Clare wanted to be angry again; she wanted to reverse her steps four days and advance full-throttle with renewed hatred. She wanted every step she took into her apartment building to be heavy, and every look she gave a passing neighbour to be dark and bitter. Instead she walked with light defeat and smiled sadly. Her limbs felt drained from the brief hours of exertion, and it was with dead fingers that she lifted and turned her key in the lock.

The glass by the door had been cleaned up, and she smelled her favourite cinnamon candle burning in the kitchen. It took her a moment to register her observations, and when she did, her palms began to sweat. "Hello?" she called out, her voice shaky but adamant. Her heart was beating quickly and she felt suddenly nauseated.

"Clare..." Jake slowly stepped out of the kitchen, a slight smile on his face and his hands fiddling awkwardly in the front pocket of his sweatshirt. Clare's face fell at the sight of him, and she took half a step backwards. She twisted the scarf in her hands, wringing it tightly and trying to focus on the weave of the wool rather than the oddly apologetic stare that Jake was giving her.

"Why now?" she suddenly blurted, feeling nervous and intimidated by his presence. Jake frowned.

"It's been days, I thought enough time had passed..."

"No," Clare cut him off, "Katie." Jake squinted his eyes in confusion.

"What about Katie?"

"Why go back to her now, after the divorce?" Jake looked away, evidently guilty.

"I just needed to see the kids... get out of the city, clear my head. Katie and I barely spoke." Clare tilted her head.

"But you said you were working things out," she began. Jake's mouth popped open and he gave Clare a look of shock.

"Between you and I, Clare - I just needed to work out things in my head!" Although infinitely relieved by the information, Clare felt suddenly overwhelmed and dizzy, and her entire demeanor crumbled. Rapidly, she moved to the couch and collapsed into it, trying to organize her ragged and shallow breaths. Jake rushed to her side, his hand on her back in a gesture of comfort. "Clare, no - no, it's not like that. I love you, I'm here, don't worry..."

Clare could barely register his words, barely feel the hand moving up and down her back, barely hear his quiet 'shh.' She was overcome with an overbearing guilt and confusion that she couldn't quiet place - he loved her, he was here, she didn't need to worry. _Eli..._ how could she have done something so stupid? Who was she? Her own image of herself was beginning to blur in her mind until she was barely a reflection of herself. She was changing - maybe losing herself, maybe gaining - and she wasn't sure how to handle it.

As she slowly gained control of her breath and her heart beat slowed to a more normal pace, she grew vaguely aware of Jake's words and actions. Like a splash of cold water, his presence and intentions hit her squarely.

"Jake," she suddenly exclaimed, her eyes wide, "You can't do that. You can't do that anymore, you can't. Don't leave, you can't do that to me." Her words were hysterical and although she knew somewhere that she needed to get a grip on herself, she couldn't seem to control her compulsive chant. Jake knowingly wrapped his arms around her tightly, pulling her against his torso while he tangled one hand in her hair and laid the other gently around her hip.

"I'm not going anywhere, Clare, I'm not going to do that again. I promise."

* * *

><p>Jake had kissed Clare gently on the forehead before retreating to their untouched bedroom for a much-needed nap later that evening. Clare sat numbly on the couch, a blanket wrapped tightly around her while she stared blankly at the television. Everything was white noise.<p>

She couldn't make out the words blaring at her through the speakers, so she was startled when a quiet shuffling by the door interrupted her barren mind with a reverberating echo. She glanced over her shoulder, waiting until the sound of her heart beating in her ears faded to a quiet hum. A slight piece of folded, white paper was sitting on the floor, one corner still tucked into the doorway. She furrowed her brow in confusion, glancing towards the bedroom. She grabbed for the TV remote, muting her show and listening for Jake's faint snoring. Quietly, she discarded her blanket and tiptoed to the door.

The paper had been ripped unsteadily from a notebook, it's edges frayed and uneven, and the fold down the middle mirrored this lack of concern. Hesitating for a moment, she reached out and picked it up, pausing before her fingers danced across the top edge to pull it open. The blue lines had been disregarded, the painfully-familiar handwriting scrawled all-but-sideways on the page. Biting her bottom lip softly, she had her fist around the door-handle before she could even begin to read.

"Eli," she hissed as soon as she had stepped into the hall, looking in either direction so quickly it sent a jolt of pain through her neck. "Eli, get back here!" She crossed her arms over her chest, the letter crumpling slightly in her hand while she tapped her foot with condescending impatience.

She waited with bated breath for a brief second, but as expected, a sheepish Eli presented himself from around the nearest corner. He approached her with his head down, his hands shoved self-consciously in his pockets. "Hi," he whispered, coming closer until he was towering closely to her tensed frame.

"What is..." she trailed off as her voice cracked, the scent of his cologne assaulting her senses and catching her off-guard with familiarity. "What is this?" she demanded, clearing her throat and looking away.

"Did you read it?" She met his green eyes again, only to be deterred by the unsettling intensity behind them.

"N-no, I... Jake came back. There's... it was nothing with Katie, just a misunderstanding. He's here, he apologized." Eli let out an indeterminate sound of acknowledgement at her words, but her attention was focused on the way he seemed to be inching infinitely towards her.

The silence hung between them momentarily, thick with unspoken words. "Does that really change... _anything_, Clare?" His voice was low and she felt it reverberate through her tense muscles. She swallowed heavily.

"Of course it does. I- I was confused and overwhelmed... I shouldn't have..." She trailed off, her eyes darting up to his face, taking note of how little space was being left between them. She tried to step backwards, but her feet would not move.

"I don't believe you." His statement was clear and concise and showed no sign of hesitation. The determination that she felt exuding from the man before her made her knees shake and parts of her began to feel numb; her nose, her ears, the toes on her right foot. She wanted to speak - she wanted to say something but her lips would not form the words that her mind was screaming uselessly. Out of the corner of her frozen eyes, she saw his hand, approaching her form at a steady pace until suddenly his long fingers were cradling her head, lost in the tangles of her hair. _Oh._

This was new.

Her breath was caught in her throat. His hand slowly disentangled itself from her hair, traveling slowly from the back of her neck to grip her tiny waist. She felt his fingertips trailing along the skin of her collarbone as they made the long trek, and everywhere he touched felt suddenly aflame.

Had they _ever_ been this close before? She swore she could feel every particle of air that escaped his lips.

She let her head fall back, only to realize she was pushed up against the wall. When did that happen? She didn't remember. Everything before three moments earlier was a blur, not that she cared.

Had his eyes always been so... _smoldering_?

"Clare..."

_Guttural._ His voice, her name - the only thing interrupting the silence between them as neither could find the courage to breath - had never been so low, husky, throaty. It was almost more than she could handle; it nearly drove her to break this moment in which they both stood frozen, paralyzed in each other's gaze.

She could barely stand; _up,__it,__this,__him._ Yes, standing in all conceptions was definitely growing more and more difficult.

Suddenly, she felt him breathing and it was enough to shock her but not enough to entice a reaction of her yet.

The most benign of actions, and to her it felt adventurous, the way it tickled her lips, her tongue, her nose... and then disappeared into everything. It swept through her body and then her eyes dropped. Ever so slightly, but enough to make him say it again.

"Clare."

_Demanding._ So rough and hard she could feel it resounding through her unwavering joints. It drove her absolutely wild, and she knew that if _he_ hadn't cracked yet, _she_ would soon.

Her eyelids moved again. Fluttering this time, reminding her that moving was an option; moving was simple and she could do it anytime she wanted. Anytime now. As easily as she could breath.

Her stiff muscles and empty lungs remained as such.

This was unbearable, she had established so already. But what else was this? This was wrong. This was unprecedented. This was spontaneous, and shocking, and without a moment of question the most intense instance that existed in her memory to date.

This was perfect.

This was so...

She swallowed hard. It felt nice; relief washed through her torso, emanating throughout her limbs. She felt the muscles contract in her throat for a split second, but he had heard her. He had heard, or seen, or felt, or _something_, but he knew. She had cracked, and he knew it.

She had nothing else to lose.

"This... We can't..." Her words were shaky and unconvincing.

"I thought you were done questioning yourself." _Oh._She swallowed again.

"I thought you said we wouldn't make the same mistakes." Her voice broke out from between her lips hoarse and cracked. His resulting smirk made her knees weak.

"_This,_" he breathed, "Is _not_ a mistake."

He wasted no time crashing against her like a tidal wave, and a swell of goose-bumps across her skin was the first thing she noticed. His lips were the second.

And just as quickly as it had begun, it escalated. His fingers were the first thing to move, aside from their impetuous lips. Instead of leaving a trail of searing heat, the spot which they had now left vacated felt cold and empty, and she immediately wanted it back. She needed him to hold her like he had been - she needed to feel him at every possible point.

He complied shortly after as his hand began a torturous dance from her stiffened shoulder, across the awaiting skin of her arm, her elbow, down to her clenched fist. His fingers gently tried to work their way into her grasp.

His lips began to slow in their movements; no longer urgent, but frustratingly languid. She struggled to contest his change of pace; his mouth seemed to control hers, forcing her pink lips to follow his lead, and he was leading them right...

To...

A stop.

She fought the urge to whimper and cry and whine when his lips finally disengaged from hers, their contact now just a fond memory of hers. Instead, she furrowed her brow, her face crinkling in what she hoped was not inexplicable confusion.

He rested his forehead against hers for the briefest of moments before their faces ceased to touch altogether when he placed his head on her shoulder, his serene breath now washing slowly over the patch of exposed skin right above her collar.

Inaudibly, Clare let out a low growl which, had she let him hear, would have been his first indicator of her sudden-and illimitable-aggravation.

"I've wanted to do that since the day you knocked on my door. No, the funeral. Fuck, Clare, I've wanted to do that for over a decade." Clare took in his words, shifting her weight from side to side to quell the churning in her stomach.

"Then do it again." Eli lifted his face, and his eyes were widened slightly. He stared at her for a moment and Clare was preparing for an, 'are you sure?,' but it never came. His face was against hers again, and his tongue was forcing its way into her mouth. She threw her hands around his neck, tugging at his hair impatiently, her hips jerking forward to meet his. He groaned into her mouth, his hands gliding down her sweater and onto the back of her jeans, the force of his grip telling her that no degree of closeness would suffice.

She fought to keep contact at their lips, having never so-appreciated the taste of coffee and cigarettes, but his mouth travelled insistently to her cheek, across her jaw, around her ear and down her neck. She whimpered at the sensation that shot through her when his teeth dragged slowly along her collar bone, and her fingers clamped around his shoulders, grabbing a fistful of his shirt.

He pulled away again, but this time they both remained still and quiet, staring at each other while they shared the same ragged breaths.

_Now __what?_ Clare was unsure of how to proceed. Eli seemed unplagued by the question, as a small smile graced his lips and his eyes looked so relaxed, he appeared nearly sleepy. Wordlessly, Eli leaned forward and left a soft, gentle kiss on Clare's lips, his fingers grazing her own quickly before he turned and walked away.

Clare stood in the hallway alone for a minute, contemplating his actions. He had turned and walked away, but something told Clare that there was no need to fear the abandonment she had come to expect from him, and despite the fact that she remained isolated and solitary outside her apartment, she felt less alone than she had in a very long time.


	12. Chapter Eleven

**A/N: I was MIA because of school, but thanks to everyone for reviewing.**

**Cataclysm**

_**Disclaimer: **_Disclaimed.

_Chapter Eleven_

When Imogen first noticed that the writer she was dating didn't ever actually seem to be writing - an observation which hadn't taken long to form - she tried to chalk it up to writer's block, distraction, or privacy; _something_ that was understandable, reasonable or simple. Whenever she would ask him what he was doing, it was something mundane and ordinary; watching horror movies, about to call his parents, going to dinner with Adam, working on his car. Not writing. _Never_ writing. When she had first become acquainted with his messy basement apartment, she had noticed a pile of notebooks in the corner of his bedroom that - though not entirely untouched - whenever a change in position occurred, Imogen was compelled to attribute it to an accidental jostling.

Months passed since they began seeing each other, and Eli never brought up his writing as so much as a hobby, let alone his career. Imogen had thought that perhaps once he started his workshop circuit, he'd fall back into it but, if anything, he grew more reserved about the subject. To have him divulge even in the progress of his students was a mission and Imogen eventually stopped trying.

When they moved into their new apartment, Imogen noticed that his pile of notebooks was now hidden in a box in their closet. She had offered to unpack it on his desk, but he dismissed the idea. _Clutter,_ he called it. Imogen wasn't sure why this was so frustrating to her, but the lack of answers was slowly driving her insane. So one night, when Eli had passed out in front of the TV, a book forgotten on his chest and his body sprawled across the couch, she eased open their closet door and pulled open the cardboard flaps of the box.

There must have been fifty spiral notebooks settled in dust, but Imogen never touched even one. On top, a red notebook sat, settled open to one of the center pages.

_I have nothing worth saying. Happy now?_

The words were messy and cryptic, and although Imogen wanted to be offended that he had _expected_ her to go looking, she was overcome with a curious guilt. Carefully, she returned the box to where she had found it.

Imogen never addressed what she had found or what it meant, and the mystery of those words faded to the back of her mind.

"Imo, can you pass me a new pen?"

She looked up to Eli's smiling face, startled as he broke her from her reverie. She hadn't been paying attention to him that morning after waking to find him hunched over a notebook, scribbling furiously. Instead, she had been lost in her thoughts, staring blankly at the empty couch where, hours earlier, esoteric Clare Edwards had been passed out, drunk.

She forced a smile as she gently handed him a pen, thinking bitterly to herself; clearly, he had found something worth saying.

Eli felt like he'd been lying in bed for days, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling. Imogen sighed and shifted beside him, but he couldn't focus on her for more than a few seconds. He nearly giggled as he brought a gentle finger to his grinning mouth. His lips were numb. He felt fifteen years old, giddy and sleepless while his mind reeled with adrenaline. His heart was pounding, and his stomach was tingling. God, was he meant to be a writer because this was exactly the thing great novels were made of.

Imogen's hand suddenly landed on his shoulder, and he rolled over to face the wall, no intention of relinquishing this trance.

He wondered if she was awake, if she was feeling like this, if her blood was hot with passion but her fingers were cold with disbelief. He wondered if she'd read his note yet. Not that she needed to anymore. He smiled again, another laugh bubbling in his stomach as he retraced the simple words in his mind.

_I hope to God you mean it, because I never stopped loving you._

He had been so sure that everything about Clare was embedded in his mind like a seared brand; he had enshrined the smell of her hair, the feel of her skin, the freckles on her nose in thousands of notebooks of poems, and love scenes, and two-sentence scribbles. The taste of her lips had haunted him in dreams he once called nightmares. If there was one thing he had believed, it was that he knew Clare better than anything else and he always would. And now, lying in his bed smiling and dragging fingers across his mouth, he realized how abundantly wrong that was as he acknowledged a more agonizingly addictive taste than had ever graced his tongue before.

He needed her.

* * *

><p>"Headache, sweetie?"<p>

Clare sat at her kitchen table, face downward as she rubbed small circles into her temples.

"Yes, and this is the last thing I need." _What I need is to crawl under a rock and stay there forever._

"Want me to call in to work for you?" Clare sighed.

"No, I'll manage." She got up, turning her back quickly to avoid facing Jake and busying herself with the toaster.

"Just as well," he said coming up behind her, "I'll be at the office late so I won't be around to take care of you." Clare stiffened just as his hand found her waist softly.

"On second thought, I could use a date with the couch and the TV. This will just make me the grouchiest waitress in the city, anyhow." She turned again, trying to duck past Jake's arms before he could catch her attention.

"Hey, slow down," he laughed, trapping her against the counter and peering under her bangs. "Can't a guy give his suffering girlfriend a feel-better kiss?" Clare shifted uncomfortably, refusing eye contact.

"I just don't want you to catch something in case it's... more than a headache, you know?" Jake straightened up, his face falling slightly at her half-heartedly excused rejection.

"Okay," he said softly. Clare, overwhelmed with guilt, finally looked up to meet his saddened eyes and was about to open her mouth and apologize when the sudden pop of the toaster startled them both. Jake let out a huffy breath and made his way to the living room while Clare buttered her bread.

"I'll call you at lunch," he called over to her from the doorway, briefcase in hand. Clare nodded, her eyes still shifting around the room instead of settling on him. When she heard the door shut behind him, she dropped her breakfast on the counter and threw her hands into her hair, tugging as hard as she could to diffuse the scream bubbling in her throat.

* * *

><p>Clare didn't know how many more days she could waste away on feelings of guilt and emptiness. Jake had left for work an hour ago, and she had been sitting on the couch the entire time, stiff posture causing a pinch in her spine, all the while staring at her cold, soggy toast.<p>

Her instinct was to berate her decision to let her guard down - to berate herself for being so weak at the suggestion of a familiar smirk and a familiar kiss. But she'd been through that so many times already. How often was she going to do this before she accepted that Eli would always be able to get to her, and there was nothing she could do about it?

No, she was going to suppress that instinct and examine how she really felt... no guilt, no anger, just what was left without all of those pre-programmed emotions of morality.

She imagined that hallway, his hands on her hips and the feeling of his hot breath against her nose. How her knees had felt weak, but she'd been far too paralyzed to tremble. She imagined the white-hot shivers that had run through her while they kissed, how she'd all but begged him not to stop and how happy she had been when he didn't.

Eli was the only person who kissed her like that. No one else had ever paralyzed her, made her shiver, made her _beg_. And that scared the hell out of her.

So, she felt scared. Not guilty, not angry, but scared.

"Damn it!" she screamed suddenly, unable to stop herself. She had thrown herself against the back of the couch, tears springing to her eyes almost instantly.

What good was it to finally consider her true feelings if all she could come up with was scared?

_What the hell am I supposed to do with _scared_?_

She suddenly felt the overwhelming desire to talk to someone, to tell someone everything and let them help her with this chaos. But the truth was, and Clare knew this, that she had no one to go to. She'd cut ties with everyone.

She'd vanished from her old job, she'd stopped speaking with her ex-fiance and all of her friends. She hadn't even logged into Facerange since Julia was alive.

Ashamed, Clare realized that even her parents didn't know she'd moved back into the city. She'd become the second Edwards daughter to disappear, only calling from an undisclosed location on Christmas and birthdays.

Did she even have a relationship with God anymore?

She'd created this world where all she had was a shell of herself, and her boyfriend. She blew-off anybody's attempts to get close to her. Why was she doing this to herself? Because...

"Because I'm a terrible person. A terrible friend who can't be trusted," she mumbled to herself. She thought back to the day Eli had fought back with her, calling her a bad friend. He was right and she knew it - even then she'd known it. Especially then.

Julia was the only friend Clare had ever truly loved, but she'd betrayed her. And the entire time, their entire life, she had let Julia remain oblivious. She had let her remain trusting Clare, loving Clare, turning to Clare and supporting Clare.

And then she'd died before Clare could ever tell her and now Clare had to deal with the ultimate karmic justice; living with it forever.

Clare set her head back gently, looking at the ceiling. She reached out blindly for a pillow and pulled it against her chest, desperate for a physical presence to comfort her but knowing no one in her life could provide that for real.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "Julia... Julia, I'm so, so sorry." She chanted the words quietly while thick tears fell quietly from her eyes, all the while knowing that there was no one to forgive her.


End file.
